The United States House and Senate have, yet again, passed a stopgap bill to temporarily fund the federal government and avoid a shutdown, the third time in the last four months that Congress has pushed off its own deadline for figuring out a funding deal.
In November, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) that funded the government in two tranches, one that would run out January 19 – tomorrow – and another that lasts until February 2. The bill that passed today keeps that same laddered structure, but moves the deadlines to March 1 and March 8, giving Congress another month and a half to pass a longer-term set of appropriations bills.
Much like the two previous CRs that were passed in November and September of last year, today’s bill got support from nearly the entire Democratic caucus in both chambers, but a substantial number of more conservative Republicans voted against it. The final vote in the Senate was 77-18, while it was 314-108 in the House.
New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress broke down the exact same way they had in both previous CR votes, with 13 members supporting the bill and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) opposing it. Similar to his previous justifications, Van Drew said he might have supported the CR if it contained “even a 1% cut” in spending, but he couldn’t support it in its current form.
“I really do respect [Speaker Mike Johnson]; he’s been put in an awful position,” Van Drew said of his vote. “I’m just not voting for the same old, same old. This is continuing the Pelosi budget. It’s not the Speaker’s fault, and it’s better than closing down government, but it’s something I don’t want to be a part of.”
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), meanwhile, voted for the bill but criticized Congress’s repeated inability to find a long-term funding deal for the government, which she said has had deleterious effects on things like the Defense Department’s modernization programs and troop pay raises.
“The number one thing is to keep the government open, to keep government functioning despite all attempts by the GOP to do the opposite,” Sherrill said. “But this is really detrimental to how we fund our government, particularly how we fund the Defense Department… I think we’re all happy to talk about what we want to fund or not fund, but this just feels like we’re limping along, trying to keep the government open in a way that I don’t think is very effective.”
The bill now goes to President Joe Biden, who is likely to sign it. The bigger challenge in front of Congress now is hashing out a proper long-term deal; Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have announced an agreement, but it’s already prompted ire from many of the same conservative Republicans who opposed today’s CR.