The Senate passed bipartisan legislation on Friday evening to fund most of the federal government through September 30 and keep the Department of Homeland Security running for two weeks, paving the way for Congress to avoid another federal government shutdown like the record-long shutdown that roiled Washington late last year.
The $1.2 trillion spending package — which will fund the Pentagon and the Departments of Education, Labor, Health, Transportation, Treasury, and State — passed the Senate by a 71–29 vote and gives Congress some breathing room to negotiate a more detailed spending package surrounding DHS, which has come under fire from Democrats following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good earlier this month.
The House of Representatives is out of session this week and is not expected to return to Washington and vote on the spending package until Monday evening, meaning a partial shutdown is expected to go into effect beginning Saturday morning.
“We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Thursday evening. “But the House is going to do its job.”
Johnson reportedly told Republican members that President Donald Trump supports the bipartisan Senate deal and that House GOP leadership is considering suspending the rules and fast-tracking the bill through the House on Monday evening. But clearing the legislation through that legislative procedure would require buy-in from two-thirds of the lower chamber’s members, which means a significant chunk of Democratic votes.
If Johnson manages to clear the package through the lower chamber early next week, Trump can quickly sign the bill and Congress can avert another lengthy shutdown. But the ensuing negotiations over another DHS bill are expected to be messy. Congressional Democrats have made clear that to win their votes on any spending package that appropriates additional federal funding to DHS will require new restrictions on the administration’s enforcement procedures and tactics, such as potential changes to warrant requirements, body camera rules, and masking protocols for immigration enforcement officers.
“We don’t have that many leverage points in the Senate, but obviously spending is one of them,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who helped negotiate the deal with the administration. “We realized we had to reform and really rein in ICE.”
Progressives enraged by the administration’s handling of its deportation operation in Minnesota and elsewhere are expected to resist any deal that doesn’t include major reforms to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which is viewed by many Democrats as a rogue agency that has fallen short of its founding mission. Meanwhile, immigration hawks in both chambers are likely to resist caving to strong Democratic demands, which will be seen by many Republicans as emboldening and rewarding progressive agitators and Democratic politicians after a Biden administration that saw record-high illegal crossings at the southern border.