House passes bill to avert partial government shutdown, sends to Senate

How each House member voted on the spending bill

But a larger and trickier shutdown deadline lurks just over two weeks from now, on March 22, and lawmakers remain fiercely divided over how to fund those agencies and which policies to attach to that legislation.

Still, Congress is on a realistic path to finally conclude the fiscal 2024 appropriations process after extending the deadline four times over disagreements within a fractious House Republican conference that led to the historic ousting of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“Passing these bills will give us much-needed momentum to finish the next package of spending bills by the March 22 deadline,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber’s floor Wednesday. “But as I’ve said repeatedly, it will take bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.”

Far-right Republicans in the House had sought to use the appropriations process to significantly curtail spending by prohibiting funding for Planned Parenthood, slash resources for the Education Department, enact rigid new immigration restrictions and claw back some of the money for the White House’s climate agenda.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has recently been more direct in defending the pathway he has charted to ensure the government does not shut down, as a majority of Republicans recognize they would get blamed for it — a hefty political price during an election year in which the GOP is fighting to keep and expand its two-vote majority.

Over the past week, Johnson has encouraged his conference to accept that the “singles and doubles” they have scored in the first tranche of funding bills could have turned into grand slams had Republicans not allowed ideological differences over funding the government to limit his hand in negotiations with other congressional leaders, all of whom agreed on funding levels set by McCarthy and President Biden last year.

“We want to cut spending. We want to limit the size and scope of the federal government. The reality right now is that we have divided government … so we have to be realistic about what we’re able to achieve,” Johnson said Wednesday.

Biden is set to confront the relative progress and brewing impasse during his State of the Union address Thursday while also attempting to lay out his most direct pitch yet to voters for a second term.

But some of his priorities and Congress’s spending debates have become entangled with U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel and immigration debates at the Mexican border. Biden and Democrats are eager to send more arms and resources to Ukraine as Russian invaders attempt to push deeper into the country. The president has also sought to send funds to Israel for its war against Hamas but has run into opposition from fellow Democrats concerned about rising civilian death tolls in the Gaza Strip.

Johnson and Republicans say they want to pass border and immigration legislation before sending aid to allies, and some of those policy pushes, lawmakers say, have clouded the government funding picture. Members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus have repeatedly argued that Congress should not fund agencies that they believe contribute to the influx of migrants at the Mexican border, ease access to abortions, or support LGBTQ and diversity, equity and inclusion measures.

“Republicans will go around and talk about how they scored major wins, how they somehow delivered for the American people. The fact of the matter is we did no such thing,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) said on the House floor. “If any member from the body can come down and explain to the American people in terms they can understand, explain it — what exactly the cuts look like.”

The bill passed by the House on Wednesday funds roughly 30 percent of the federal government — including the Justice, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and crucial government research functions — for the rest of fiscal 2024, which ends Sept. 30.

It was the product of two bipartisan compromises in Washington, agreements that have faced substantial scrutiny and threats from far-right legislators.

Last spring, Biden and McCarthy agreed to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling in exchange for limiting federal spending to $1.59 trillion in 2024. House Republicans chafed at the deal, and disagreements over…