WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 88-9 on Saturday night to pass a short-term bill to keep the government open until November, averting a government shutdown with just hours to spare.
The bill passed the House earlier by a bipartisan vote of 335-91, and President Joe Biden signed it into law late Saturday night.
The bill will keep the government open until Nov. 17 and authorizes additional disaster relief money, giving Congress more time to reach a full-year funding agreement on a bill.
The bill does not include aid to Ukraine, a provision from the bipartisan Senate bill that Speaker Kevin McCarthy declined to support, saying it should be considered separately.
“It has been a day full of twists and turns, but the American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown tonight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
“After trying to take our government hostage, MAGA Republicans won nothing,” Schumer continued. “So one more time: It is good Speaker McCarthy finally — finally — heeded our message that bipartisanship was and is the only way. He could have made this decision weeks ago.”
McCarthy announced Saturday morning that he would axe the Republican demands for spending cuts and policy provisions on immigration in order to hold a quick House vote on a “clean” stopgap bill. The extreme right wing of the party opposed this, calling for McCarthy to be removed.
The Biden administration said the CR was a “big victory” in funding and keeping the government open, according to a senior administration official.
Biden praised the news in a statement, saying it is about “preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans” and calling that “good news for the American people.”
“But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place,” Biden continued.
