House adopts new stopgap funding bill to keep government open

With a government funding deadline looming this Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed another stopgap measure today that keeps the government funded at current levels through January 19 or February 2, depending on the department.

The bill, known as a continuing resolution, passed the House 336-95, with just over half of the Republican caucus joining all but two House Democrats in supporting it. Among New Jersey’s 12 House members, 11 voted for it, with the one exception being Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis).

“I would have voted for it if there was even a 1% cut [in spending],” Van Drew said. “The speaker’s a great man, and he’s in a really difficult situation here… Hopefully now that it’s passed, we’ll be able to go forward and do some good appropriations bills.”

The original deadline to pass the 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund the government long-term was on September 30. Thanks to sharp disagreements between the Republican-led House and the Democratic Senate and White House, it had looked like the government was going to shut down on October 1 until a last-minute continuing resolution was passed that kept the government open through November 17.

But that stopgap measure led to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the House was absorbed for three full weeks by the process of choosing a new speaker, leaving little time to negotiate a proper funding deal. That necessitated another continuing resolution to keep the lights on, with new House Speaker Mike Johnson settling on the idea of a “laddered” approach which funds different government agencies for slightly different amounts of time.

It remains to be seen whether the Senate and President Joe Biden will go along with the House’s two-step plan, though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has sounded positive about it.

Two New Jersey representatives who supported the bill, Republican Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) and Democratic Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), both said that they weren’t thrilled with having to do another stopgap bill, but that passing it was the best of a bad set of options.

“It’s not ideal, but look, I’m somebody that worked as a national security official through multiple shutdowns before,” Kim said. “I’ve been in that situation before, where I wasn’t getting paid but had to show up to work. We’ve got to be able to keep our government going.”

“There are no good options, period,” Smith concurred. “But we’ve got to keep the government open.”

Smith added that by funding the government through January and February, Congress will avoid a holiday season crunch, when a funding deadline is approaching right before Christmas and representatives feel pressured into voting for hastily drawn bills just to be able to go home.

“The speaker made it very clear that he doesn’t want another argument where we have to have it done by Christmas, and then all kinds of things get put in that otherwise would never survive scrutiny,” he said. “This gives us a little breathing room. It’s not a good outcome, but it beats shutting down the government.”