House To Vote On Stopgap Measure

The Senate and House return this week with just three weeks to pass a funding measure to avoid a government shutdown. To remove some pressure on this time limit, lawmakers in both chambers have endorsed a continuing resolution (CR) to delay the end of the fiscal year. The House has pledged to vote on a proposal while the Senate Majority Leader has offered support.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced in a letter to the caucus on Thursday that the chamber will be taking up a short term CR during the week of September 16. While legislation has not been made public, Rep. Hoyer pledged to a “clean continuing resolution to fund the government past September 30th.”

“As we wait for [the Senate] to complete their work so that we can begin conference negotiations, a continuing resolution will be necessary to prevent another government shutdown like the one we experienced earlier this year, which harmed thousands of American families,” Hoyer wrote.

The House has passed 12 appropriations bills on party line votes while the Senate has yet to bring any legislation to the floor.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has endorsed this plan, saying Congress simply needed more time to negotiate a long term spending bill.

“A major focus of the Senate this month will be moving forward as many of the regular appropriations bills as possible and then passing a temporary continuing resolution for the outstanding parts of the government before the end of September,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday.

Senator McConnell also noted that he was “confident” the Senate could pass several funding measures in the coming weeks and avert a shutdown for remaining departments.

In order for the measure to pass it would require a signature from the White House. President Trump declined to sign a stop gap measure last year. However, Congressional Republicans are optimistic that one can be signed this year since the president secured border wall funding through an emergency declaration earlier in the year.

Rep. Hoyer has proposed that the stop gap measure last until November 22.