WASHINGTON \u2014 The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the short-term spending bill that will give lawmakers the time they need to put the finishing touches on fiscal 2024 appropriations and wrap up the process in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n
Under suspension of the rules, which requires two-thirds of lawmakers\u2019 support, the chamber passed the bill on a 320-99 vote. It will now head to the Senate, where that chamber could pass it as soon as later Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will require all of us working together,\u201d Schumer said Thursday morning. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly no reason this should take a very long time. So, let\u2019s cooperate and get it done quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill will set up a first tranche of spending bills that the House is expected to vote on next Wednesday: the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD measures.<\/p>\n
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Thursday that legislative text of that package would be released over the weekend. Text is expected to be released Sunday, which would set up a Wednesday vote in the House under the chamber\u2019s 72-hour rule to give lawmakers sufficient time to consider the package.<\/p>\n
The final contents of the bills are not yet clear, though it appears that the bills will not feature the big conservative policy wins House Republicans were pushing for. Schumer said Thursday that the package would not include \u201cunacceptable poison-pill riders that we said would not fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Republicans are expected to claim credit for wins in the package even if they aren\u2019t the most high-profile, culture war-related items that received most of the attention over the summer when the House was debating the bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re expecting a lot of home runs and grand slams here, I admit you\u2019ll be disappointed. But we will be able to secure a number of policy victories,\u201d Johnson told members on a conference call Friday, according to a source familiar with his comments. \u201cThese bills will be littered with singles and doubles that we should be proud of, especially in our small majority.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second batch of bills will be considered by the March 22 deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown, lawmakers have said. That package includes the Defense, Financial Services, Legislative Branch, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education and State-Foreign Operations measures.<\/p>\n
Sources are split on how close lawmakers are to reaching a deal on the second package. One person close to the talks said they were \u201cclose\u201d and could be done \u201cwell in advance\u201d of March 22.<\/p>\n
Others were less optimistic about how near they actually are to finalizing that package, which includes the most controversial measures, specifically the Homeland Security and Labor-HHS-Education bills. Lawmakers are continuing to negotiate open issues, sources said.<\/p>\n
For example, Homeland Security appropriations remain unfinished. Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Chair Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said that Republicans had not yet dropped their demands for controversial policy riders in his bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublicans are going to have to give up their riders, this is a budget bill, this is not a policy bill,\u201d he said. \u201cThese riders can\u2019t pass, they know they can\u2019t pass. It\u2019s going to be up to Republicans, whether they want to shut down the government or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immigration policy became a flash point during House floor debate on the stopgap measure Thursday. Members of the hard-line Freedom Caucus and others repeatedly brought up the recent murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley in Athens, Ga., by a Venezuelan man who crossed into the U.S. illegally, and was released temporarily into the country.<\/p>\n
Critics of the appropriations process also brought up continuation of current spending levels while U.S. debt continues to rise rapidly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we seem to offer is low energy and low (testosterone) in the face of these mounting challenges,\u201d Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said.<\/p>\n
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., argued that forcing a shutdown would damage national security including nuclear weapons programs at the Energy Department, and would only hurt constituents in GOP as well as Democratic districts.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment shutdowns, and I have lived through three, never work. They do more harm than good,\u201d said Fleischmann, chairman of the House Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee. \u201cI do respect my friends who are very passionate today in opposing this. But the reality is the American people want us to do our work, and to do our work well. We\u2019ve got to keep the government open.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, Johnson received a \u201cmajority of the majority\u201d on the stopgap vote: 113 Republicans voted for it, with 97 against.<\/p>\n
The six-page continuing resolution is mostly very simple: It extends the deadline to March 8 for four of the bills that were operating with a deadline of this Friday. For the rest of the bills that already had a March 8 deadline, the measure would extend that date to March 22.<\/p>\n
Then there are the five pages of surprise new language added Wednesday in response to a problem that arose just a day earlier.<\/p>\n
It includes a provision that would block the Education Department\u2019s Tuesday decision that Republicans say could have expanded Pell Grant eligibility for roughly 280,000 college students in the upcoming academic year. Democrats support the change as well because Pell Grants weren\u2019t intended to benefit students in families with slightly higher incomes, and if left in place would cause major strains on discretionary programs in future years.<\/p>\n
The CR fix is estimated to save $3.4 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, with the money put back into the Pell Grant program starting in fiscal 2025 to alleviate a looming Pell shortfall that appropriators would have otherwise had to make up.<\/p>\n
However, it doesn\u2019t have universal support, as some lawmakers are worried the provision would go too far and cause roughly 100,000 students who are currently eligible for Pell to lose their assistance, sources said.<\/p>\n
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(Peter Cohn contributed to this report.)<\/p>\n
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