The House passed a short-term funding bill on Tuesday to keep the federal government operating through December 11, successfully removing the immediate threat of a government shutdown ahead of the fall midterm elections.
The legislation cleared the chamber by a 370-48 vote, following a 90-6 Senate approval in July. Because the Senate already cleared its version of the measure weeks earlier, the bill now moves directly to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature, according to reporting from The Associated Press.
Lawmakers rushed to address the impending fiscal year deadline well ahead of schedule, driven by a desire to avoid a funding lapse during the campaign season. Last year, federal employees endured a record 43-day funding lapse over Affordable Care Act marketplace tax credits, followed by a 76-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that halted immigration enforcement funding and left workers without paychecks.
“It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters ahead of the vote that the chamber’s priority was avoiding a funding freeze.
“On this CR we’ll take up, it simply holds funding steady at current levels through Dec. 11th, as Republicans work to complete the full year appropriations process,” Johnson said.
The continuing resolution includes notable policy alterations added during Senate negotiations. According to House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the final text represents a marked improvement over an earlier stopgap proposal that would have funded the government only through December 4 without administrative guardrails.
The approved legislation contains a temporary provision blocking an Office of Management and Budget proposed rule that would place federal grant funding under review by political appointees—a policy Democrats feared would be used to steer money away from Democratic-led states. The text also prevents the Trump administration from transferring funds from other programs to the Border Patrol.
“Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” DeLauro said during a closed-door meeting with Democratic colleagues, encouraging broad support for the measure.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., confirmed the updated text would secure broad bipartisan backing, while Vice Chairman Ted Lieu, D-Calif., noted that while relying on continuing resolutions is a flawed way to manage federal operations, it remained the only viable path forward.
While the stopgap measure averts an immediate funding crisis, it leaves the underlying fiscal debate unresolved. The House has passed three of the twelve individual appropriations bills required for fiscal year 2027, while the Senate has yet to pass any. When lawmakers return to negotiate a comprehensive package after the November elections, they will face deep partisan divisions: Republicans are seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the military alongside cuts to most non-defense programs, while Democrats insist on a bipartisan approach that treats domestic programs with parity.
