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By Kaia Hubbard
/ CBS News
Washington — The House narrowly approved a stopgap measure Tuesday to keep the government funded through September, with Speaker Mike Johnson managing to largely keep his GOP conference united and pass the measure days ahead of a possible government shutdown.
The House passed the bill in a 217 to 213 vote, with one Republican opposing it and one Democrat supporting it. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the sole Republican “no” vote, while Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the lone Democratic “yes.”
House Republican leadership unveiled the legislation on Saturday. The bill increases defense spending and funding for veterans’ health care, while decreasing non-defense spending below 2024 levels. It also includes more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Congress faces a deadline to fund the government by the end of the day Friday. With the House passage, the bill now goes to the Senate. But the measure will require Democratic support in the GOP-controlled upper chamber, where 60 votes are needed for passage, and some Democrats have held their cards close to their vest.
House Republicans, with a razor-thin majority, opted to forge ahead on their own on the continuing resolution, as House Democratic leadership expressed staunch opposition to the measure. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote that the caucus “will not be complicit in the Republican effort to hurt the American people.”
Jeffries called the continuing resolution a “partisan, reckless spending bill” and “an attack” on veterans, families and seniors.
“Bipartisan negotiations were underway,” Jeffries said. “But when Donald Trump says jump, extreme MAGA Republicans say how high, and he ordered the Republicans to leave the negotiating table to try to jam this far-right extremist bill down the throats of the American people.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the Democratic conference chair, said House Democrats “want to support a bipartisan piece of legislation” and urged House Republicans to work with Democrats.
“But they have so far been unable and unwilling to do that,” Aguilar said.
With narrow Republican majorities in the House in recent years, Democrats have repeatedly helped prevent a government shutdown. And historically, the effort to get government funding over the finish line has been bipartisan. But many Democrats had reservations about the GOP-led six-month stopgap measure, warning that it would give the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency even more latitude to carry out cost-slashing efforts.
While a number of House Republicans said they were on the fence about supporting the continuing resolution ahead of the vote, ultimately only Massie voted against the continuing resolution. His opposition earned him a primary threat from President Trump, who wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would “lead the charge against him.”
Given Massie’s stance, House Republicans couldn’t afford to lose any additional votes. Johnson huddled with possible holdouts on the House floor ahead of the vote, including Rep. Andy Ogles and Tim Burchett of Tennessee. The White House worked to rally possible holdouts around the measure, with the president himself making calls to lawmakers, a White House official confirmed to CBS News. Vice President JD Vance also attended the House Republican conference meeting Tuesday morning to make the case for backing the continuing resolution.
Meanwhile, Johnson projected confidence heading into the vote, saying at a news conference Tuesday morning that Republicans would have the necessary support for the measure despite the opposition from Democrats. And House leaders told members to leave town after the vote, adding to pressure on the Senate to approve the funding measure.
“We’re going to pass the CR,” Johnson said, while criticizing Democrats for what he called a “striking new posture” on government funding. “We can do it on our own.”
Johnson could breathe a sigh of relief on Monday night when the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-liners who often oppose continuing resolutions on principle, said its members would back the stopgap funding measure.
“Contrary to Congress’ longtime abuse of this legislative tool, this CR is a paradigm shift,” the group said in a statement.
The group argued in the statement that the stopgap bill would eliminate the need for an omnibus bill, a massive package filled with earmarks that lawmakers often turn to under time pressure to fund the government. And they said that the temporary funding measure will “reduce and then freeze spending for the next six months to allow President Trump and his Administration to continue their critical work within the Executive Branch to find and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.” Some of the hard-liners met with Mr. Trump last week at the White House.
With the approval in the House, the measure now goes to the Senate, where support from a number of Democrats will be necessary to pass the continuing resolution and send it to the president’s desk. Though many Senate Democrats have spoken out against the stopgap measure, some have kept their powder dry — keeping the door open to preventing a shutdown if no other options are on the table.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wouldn’t weigh in on his caucus’ stance, saying ahead of the vote on Tuesday that Senate Democrats would “wait and see what the House does first.” Senate Democrats are expected to meet Wednesday to determine their next moves.
Democrats have signaled in recent days that they would prefer a shorter-term funding measure that would give appropriators more time to flesh out new spending bills. The top Democratic appropriators, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, introduced a continuing resolution that would fund the government through April 11 on Monday. But after the House approved the six-month continuing resolution, and with plans to leave town, their options remain limited.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, told CBS News that he supports a short-term “proper” stopgap measure to continue the appropriations process, adding in response to the House planning to leave town that “they like to bully and threaten.”
“But when push comes to shove, they’ll have to come back,” Whitehouse said.
Caitlin Yilek, and contributed to this report.
Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
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