House ekes out bill to avert shutdown, with N.J. Dems voting no

House Republicans narrowly passed a bill this afternoon to avert a shutdown and fund the government on a stopgap basis through September – a victory that came despite widespread discontent from House Democrats from New Jersey and elsewhere, who voted against the bill en masse.

The House’s success at shepherding the bill to passage shifts the pressure onto the Senate, and especially onto Senate Democrats, with a funding deadline looming on Friday. Unlike in the House, some Democratic yes votes will be necessary for the bill to pass the Senate, giving Democratic senators a tough choice: support a bill they don’t like, or vote to shut the government down.

New Jersey’s nine House Democrats all opposed the stopgap bill, saying that it included unacceptable cuts to non-defense spending. Democrats also expressed discomfort with the lack of any language protecting the funds Congress appropriates from being ignored or dismantled by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who have taken a hatchet to many federal agencies in the last two months.

“Rather than voting on this partisan bill, we should be working together to lower costs and expand access to health care like the bipartisan agreement we had in December,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) said on the House floor prior to the vote. “Unfortunately, Republicans walked away from [that] agreement because Elon Musk opposed it.”

Among the New Jersey members who were there today to vote against the bill: Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly), both gubernatorial candidates who had to skip today’s critical Democratic convention in Gottheimer’s home of Bergen County in order to make the vote.

Many Republicans, meanwhile, were not thrilled at the prospect of largely continuing funding levels set under the Biden administration rather than drafting proper appropriations legislation of their own. But faced with a severe time crunch – the party is still finding its legislative footing after gaining a government trifecta in January – Republicans like Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) decided they’d rather vote for an imperfect solution than allow a shutdown.

“We’ve got to keep the government open,” Smith said. “It is a stopgap, so it’s got to be done to keep the lights on.” (Smith and fellow GOP Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Tom Kean Jr. all supported the stopgap bill, as did all but one House Republican.)

House members skipped town immediately after the vote closed, meaning that it’s now incumbent on the Senate to pass the House’s bill in the coming days. Asked before the House voted what he thought of the lower chamber’s stopgap proposal, Senator Andy Kim declined to take a definitive stance, but said he wished there had been more bipartisan cooperation – perhaps by passing a 30-day extension and hashing out a more detailed spending plan before it runs out.

“You don’t [want to] have one element of Congress just jamming everybody else,” Kim said. “I’m hopeful that, if we see some weakness in the House’s ability, that gives an opening for us to try to get the 30-day extension and actually do something bipartisan. And the American people of course want that kind of action at this point.”

Kim has said in the past that he’d be open to opposing government funding legislation so long as Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal bureaucracy continue.

If the Senate does indeed fail to pass the bill, both parties will likely try to pass the blame for a shutdown onto the other. Asked who should really bear the blame, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) said that the answer is clear.

“Let me check – yes,” Norcross said. “[Republicans] control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. This is all on them.”