The Senate on Monday advanced a stopgap government funding bill, an early start to a bipartisan effort to avoid a shutdown this fall ahead of the midterm election.
The 89-4 test vote signals the measure is on a path to Senate passage. Leaders are hoping for a time agreement that will speed through additional procedural steps and allow for a final vote in the coming days.
The deadline to fund the government is Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
The stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, would extend current funding levels through Dec. 11, but with some exceptions to provide flexibility for priority programs, such as ones focused on national security and aid for low-income families.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the desire to advance the funding extension two months early came after two record shutdowns in the past year: a 43-day one last fall that shuttered all nonessential government work and a 76-day Department of Homeland Security funding lapse earlier this year.
“It’s better for everybody if there’s predictability, certainty,” the South Dakota Republican said. “Just to take that issue off the table is something that demonstrates to the American people that we’re serious about the job they sent us here to do. And that’s job number one.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, called the CR “a responsible pathway” to avoiding a shutdown.
“We will continue fighting for a budget that helps Americans get ahead and thwarts [President] Trump’s costly and chaotic agenda,” he said.
If the spending stopgap clears the Senate, it would still need to pass the House.
The House is on its summer recess and not scheduled to return to Washington until Aug. 31. Before beginning their break, Republicans in that chamber passed their own CR to extend government funding through Dec. 4.
Democrats largely opposed the House bill because it gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to transfer more money to Border Patrol after Republicans enacted a party-line bill providing the agency with enough funding to last through the remainder of Mr. Trump’s term.
The Senate CR does not contain the transfer authority and leaves immigration enforcement funding split from annual DHS appropriations, as lawmakers agreed to earlier this year to end the 76-day shutdown of the department.
It includes short-term extensions of several authorizing bills that are set to expire at the end of the fiscal year. For example, surface transportation programs funded by the Highway Trust Fund are extended through Dec. 11.
It also renews some expiring grant programs for all of fiscal 2027, including grants for highway infrastructure, aviation research and homeless assistance.
Passing the funding extension is the top priority for the Senate as it prepares to depart for its summer recess, currently scheduled to begin Friday.
However, Mr. Thune said it is possible that the Senate would need to stay in session through the weekend or come back next week to finish the things on his to-do list.
Before the recess, he wants to pass the CR, a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill and at least hold a first test vote on a cryptocurrency market structure bill.
Mr. Thune also wants to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general and clear an en bloc package that would confirm 74 other Trump nominees for various executive branch roles.
“We got a bunch of stuff we have to finish, and we’ll just stay here til we finish it,” he said.
Mr. Thune said a bipartisan bill to provide federal rules governing compensation of college athletes is “trending in the right direction” after weekend negotiations, but it remains to be seen if it will get a floor vote before the recess.
Senate Republicans are also still debating whether to take up a budget resolution to tee up a third filibuster-proof reconciliation bill providing funding for defense needs stemming from the Iran war, economic assistance to farmers and implementation of election requirements from the SAVE America Act.
“I’d just say at this point it’s still a work in progress,” Mr. Thune said.
Mr. Trump and some GOP senators are pushing for the Senate to stay in session until there is at least progress on advancing the SAVE America Act.
“There’s nothing more important than the SAVE America Act,” the president told reporters Monday. “I think they should stay. They do what they want, but I think they should stay.”
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