Senators sidestep one shutdown fight and set up another
As senators haggled over the remaining agenda items before their August recess, lawmakers were able to agree on a roughly two-month stopgap funding bill early Saturday morning.
But as they took a step forward on averting one government shutdown, they set up a potentially trickier standoff for December.
The Senate voted 90-6 to pass a continuing resolution in the early morning hours Saturday that would fund the government beyond the Sept. 30 deadline, sending the legislation to the House in an effort to keep federal agencies operating through Dec. 11.
The measure will still need House approval when members return from recess in September, but Saturday’s vote cleared the more politically difficult hurdle of the Senate.
By kicking the legislative can down the road, Congress has all but guaranteed a maelstrom of policy fights in December — after the November elections but before newly elected members take office. Those battles are expected to include disputes over hemp-derived intoxicating products, the White House’s politicized approach to federal grants, immigration enforcement funding and unfinished full-year government spending bills.
With the bill heading to the House, a shutdown in October is still possible. Even if lawmakers avoid that outcome, many on Capitol Hill are already skeptical they can complete work on full-year appropriations by the new Dec. 11 deadline.
“Us having a budget done by December 11 — it takes on whiffs of frozen hell and donkeys flying,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters earlier this week. “I mean, it’s probably not going to happen.”
Still, the Senate’s passage of a funding stopgap nearly two months before the Sept. 30 deadline marks a break from the pattern of last-minute funding scrambles and gives House members plenty of time to send the measure to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters the early vote was prompted by recent, historically turbulent government funding negotiations.
“There’s been enough uncertainty this last year, and you know, unfortunately, I think through two government shutdowns that have extended for a long period of time, I think it’s better for everybody if there’s predictability,” Thune said Monday.
The 43-day funding lapse in October and November 2025, triggered by a dispute over health care subsidies, was the longest shutdown ever. Lawmakers broke that record with a 76-day funding lapse from February to late April as they debated money for immigration enforcement. There was also a four-day shutdown from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3, bringing the total to three lapses over the last year.
Passage of the continuing resolution became tricky this week after a White House-backed provision to delay a ban on hemp-derived THC products drew backlash from lawmakers who couldn’t understand why Trump was punting on the implementation of a measure he signed into law. The bill would delay the ban through Dec. 11. A push to amend the bill and remove the delay, allowing the ban to go into effect in November, ultimately fizzled, as part of negotiations to get the Senate out of town for the month.
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Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.
