Key lawmakers reach stopgap spending deal to avert shutdown

House Democrats released a bipartisan shortterm spending bill to keep the government open after midnight Friday and plan to put it to a House vote later Thursday.

The bill would fund U.S. government agencies through Feb. 18 and would have to pass both the House and Senate by midnight Friday to avert a shutdown. By financing the government into next year, Democrats hope to free up time in December to pass their separate tax, climate and social spending proposal totaling roughly $2 trillion, in addition to raising the U.S. debt limit.

The stopgap measure puts agencies on autopilot, freezing in place program funding levels and forbidding new contracts, with few exceptions, one of which being $7 billion in funding to aid Afghan evacuees.

The stopgap does not address automatic cuts to Medicare and other programs slated for January under the so-called Paygo law, despite Democratic efforts to include the provision. Meeting the fast-approaching end-of-week deadline will require cooperation by Senate Republicans, who have the power to drag out the process.

In a positive sign for efforts to avert a shutdown, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Appropriations Committee Republican, endorsed the House proposal.

“I’m pleased that we have finally reached an agreement on the continuing resolution,” Shelby said in a statement. He’s been pushing to continue current funding through February, longer than Democrats wanted, to give additional time to reach agreement on the 12 annual appropriations bills.

Still lingering as a potential impediment, however, is a threat by a group of conservative Republicans to tie up the vote on a temporary government funding measure over their objections to federal Covid-19 vaccine and testing mandates.

Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas led a Nov. 3 letter signed by 10 other Senate Republicans pledging to oppose all efforts to implement President Joe Biden’s workplace rule requiring large employers to test employees for the coronavirus if the employees are not vaccinated against the disease, including by objecting to government funding bills.

Marshall and some of his allies have said that they could go along with having a simple majority vote on an amendment to the stopgap bill that would remove funding to implement the vaccine mandate, a positive sign for remedying the conflict.

“I think that would be a very good resolution,” said Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who had said he would oppose the stopgap without addressing the vaccine mandate.

Any one senator could delay consideration of the measure, possibly risking a lapse in government funding.

Some House Republicans, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have called on the GOP to shut down the government to prevent enforcement of the federal vaccine requirement.

But the votes of these Republicans are not expected to be needed to pass the stopgap bill in the House.