Senate passes one-week authorities funding invoice, averting a partial shutdown

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate permitted a one-week extension of federal authorities funding, averting a partial authorities shutdown that was scheduled to start Saturday.

The measure, which handed 71 to 19, offers lawmakers an extra week to barter and go a complete invoice to fund federal companies by way of the fiscal yr, which ends Sept. 30.

The U.S. Home handed its model of the one-week extension on Wednesday by a vote of 224-201, with 9 Republicans crossing social gathering strains to assist the invoice.

Whereas that vote was technically bipartisan, just one returning Republican voted for it. The opposite eight GOP votes got here from members who’re leaving Congress on the finish of the yr, both retiring or as a result of they misplaced reelection.

The Senate was beneath stress Thursday to go the invoice directly, and with out objections from particular person senators that would maintain up a vote beneath the expedited process getting used to go the measure.

“We should always transfer rapidly to avert a shutdown as we speak, with none unwelcome brouhaha that has prompted shutdowns in years previous,” Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer stated on the Senate ground Thursday morning.

Schumer pledged that each side would spend the remainder of the day working to get the seven day “persevering with decision,” or CR, invoice completed.

The Senate vote over the stopgap CR happened beneath the shadow of much more high-stakes negotiations at the moment underway over a large omnibus spending invoice that will fund all federal companies by way of the tip of fiscal yr 2023 subsequent September.

On Tuesday night, the highest appropriator within the Home, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the highest Republican and Democratic appropriators within the Senate, introduced that that they had reached a framework settlement to start critical negotiations over an omnibus invoice.

All three of them expressed optimism that an omnibus invoice could possibly be hammered out and handed earlier than Congress leaves for Christmas, on Dec. 23.

Notably absent from the announcement, nevertheless, was the highest Republican appropriator within the Home, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.

Home Republicans have little incentive to assist Democrats go any spending payments earlier than they take the bulk on Jan. 3.

Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy has publicly advocated for a sequence of CR payments that will fund the federal government solely into January, permitting him and his new majority to sort out a broader spending invoice after they have extra leverage.