UPDATED SAT. SEPT. 30 2023. 4.00 PM. EDT.
The U.S. government is on the brink of a shutdown as Congress has been unable to pass a short-term funding bill that would keep agencies, programs and other services operating.
The House passed a GOP-crafted continuing resolution bill to keep the government open for 45 days, sending the measure to the Senate.
The continuing resolution is a temporary spending bill that would allow federal government operations to continue despite the fact that final appropriations have not been approved by Congress and President Joe Biden.
Congress has until late Saturday night to pass a deal to avoid a shutdown.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for consequences after Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York pulled a fire alarm in a congressional office building as lawmakers grappled over a short-term funding bill.
“This should not go without punishment,” the Republican leader said at a press conference after the House passed the stopgap bill to keep the government open for 45 days.
The alarm in Cannon House Office Building was pulled as Democrats sought more time to consider whether to support that measure.
Bowman’s office in a statement Saturday afternoon suggested the congressman did not mean to set off the alarm.
“Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote,” a spokesman for Bowman told NBC News. “The Congressman regrets any confusion.”
But McCarthy was incredulous.
“I think Ethics should take a look at this, but this is serious,” McCarthy said at the press conference, adding that he planned to speak to Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York about the incident.
“He pulled a fire alarm?” McCarthy said. “What’s going through a person’s mind like that?”
House adjourns after passing 45-day stopgap bill.
The House adjourned until Monday, just minutes after passing a stopgap bill to keep the government open for 45 days.
The measure now moves to the Senate, which must pass it before midnight in order to avoid a shutdown.
Senate leaders are expected to try to expedite the process of considering the bill in order to tee it up for a vote today. Doing so would require the agreement of the entire chamber.
The House voted 335 to 91 to pass a 45-day stopgap spending measure, a significant step toward avoiding a government shutdown.
The measure does not include funding for Ukraine though it allocates money for disaster relief.
The bill, crafted by Republicans and supported by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, will now head to the Senate. The House will resume its work on Monday.
The Transportation Security Administration said about 95% of its employees will have to work without pay in the event of a government shutdown.
“Most TSA employees do not have the option for remote work. Therefore, they will still be incurring costs for their commute, childcare, and other work-related expenses, but without receiving a paycheck for their work,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.
“It impacts the ability of people to get to work, to pay to put gas in their vehicles, to pay for parking. It impacts their ability to pay the individuals that provide care for their children,” Pekoske said, adding that travelers should expect longer wait times at airports.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., slammed Republicans for bringing a 45-day stopgap measure “in the 11th hour” of a government shutdown.
“All we want is time,” Jeffries said in a nearly one-hour speech on the House floor.
“At the 11th hour, legislation is dropped on the American people and we’re told that you have 5 or 10 minutes to evaluate legislation that is more than 70 pages long and expected to simply trust the word of our extreme MAGA Republican colleagues,” Jeffries said, referencing former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
“All we are simply saying is that we want time to evaluate,” Jeffries said, adding that Democrats will return with a decision following their review of the bill.
The Democratic caucus of the House has held an emergency meeting to discuss the continuing resolution, or CR, of their Republican colleagues, according to NBC.
House Republicans were due to hold a vote on their CR at 11:45 a.m. ET.
Democrats feel they have not been given enough time to review the resolution and decide whether they support it. They requested 90 minutes to read the Republican resolution but were denied, NBC reports.
“We’re expected as elected representatives just to blindly vote on it like sheep, with that record of having your credibility undermined over and over and over again?” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, according to NBC.
Some Democrats have expressed that they might vote for the resolution.
NBC reported that Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz has indicated he would vote in favor and California Rep. Juan Vargas would vote for it “if it’s a clean CR.”
The House will vote soon on a 45-day clean continuing resolution aimed at keeping the government open.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters that the 45-day stopgap measure does not include funds for Kyiv’s fight against Moscow because “Ukraine has $3 billion” already. The text of the bill does include funding for disaster relief.
Since the inception of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, the U.S. has unleashed a war chest worth more than $43 billion in security assistance.
Here’s Congress’ schedule so far as officials try to avert shutdown
Congress has just hours to pass a budget before the government shuts down. Here’s the schedule so far today, according to NBC, though plans could change:
9:30 a.m. ET: House Republicans met in the Capitol for a conference meeting. This follows another conference meeting Friday evening where Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed a 45-day budget that would fund disaster relief but neither border security nor Ukraine support. That resolution did not pass and will likely continue to change.
10 a.m. ET: The House opened the floor and started its Saturday session.
According to NBC, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said the House should have started earlier this morning: “We should have been at this seven o’clock in the morning talking about it.”
11:45 a.m. ET: The House will vote on a CR that would provide a budget until mid-November, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced.
12 p.m. ET: The Senate is due to resume its session.
Around 1 p.m. ET (delayed): This afternoon, the Senate postponed its third procedural vote on a bipartisan continuing resolution, or CR, that would keep the government funded in the short term. Senators have begun a so-called “live quorum call,” a procedure where they will discuss next steps.
The Senate’s CR needs 60 votes to move forward. The first two procedural votes took place on Sept. 26, when it received 77 votes in favor, and Sept. 28, when it received 76 votes in favor. If the procedural vote passes, debate will begin for up to 30 hours.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the lower chamber are buying time on the House floor to give the proposed CR of their Republican colleagues a more thorough review before voting.
3:45 p.m. ET: Senate Democrats will hold a caucus to discuss next steps in addressing a House-passed CR.
11:59 p.m. ET: This is the deadline for the government to pass a budget deal before the shutdown takes effect.