House passes stopgap bill to avert shutdown before midterms

The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to keep the federal government open through Dec. 11, sending President Donald Trump a stopgap spending bill that removes the immediate threat of a shutdown weeks before the midterm elections.

The continuing resolution passed 370-48, with 19 Republicans and 29 Democrats opposed. The Senate approved the measure on Aug. 8, and it now heads to Trump for his signature. Without action, existing funding was set to expire Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

The temporary bill keeps federal spending at current levels while giving Congress more time to negotiate full-year appropriations for fiscal 2027, which runs through Sept. 30, 2027. Congress normally must pass 12 separate spending bills covering areas such as defense, homeland security, energy and housing, but lawmakers have not completed that work.

The vote also lets members of Congress avoid a politically volatile funding fight before the Nov. 3 elections, which will determine control of the House and Senate for the final two years of Trump’s presidency. “This will give Congress time to get past the November elections,” Republican House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said during debate.

Top House Democrats backed the Senate-passed measure after saying it included policy changes they supported. One provision delays until Dec. 11 a new rule from the White House Office of Management and Budget that Democrats feared would let the Trump administration cancel grants at any time for any reason.

“Given that the objectives that we had were met, I think that there’s going to be broad bipartisan support,” Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair, told reporters before the vote.

Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro said the bill would help Congress assert its role in federal spending decisions. “The power of the purse resides within the Congress. It is our exclusive responsibility,” DeLauro said, adding, “The first step in exercising that authority is passing this bill today.”

The path to Tuesday’s vote followed months of partisan clashes over spending and immigration enforcement. In July, the House passed its own continuing resolution that would have funded the government through Dec. 4, but most Democrats opposed it because it funded immigration enforcement agencies without new limits on their conduct. The Senate never took up that measure.

Since Republicans took control of both chambers after the 2024 elections, Democrats have used the Senate filibuster in funding fights with the majority. Last year, Senate Democrats refused to support spending legislation that did not extend Affordable Care Act health plan subsidies, leading to a 43-day funding lapse, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Al Jazeera reported that shutdowns during Trump’s second term have lasted a combined 161 days.

Some government agencies also shut down briefly earlier this year after Democrats held up Department of Homeland Security funding in protest of the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. Al Jazeera identified them as Alex Pretti and Renee Good and reported that they were shot by immigration agents in Minnesota.

The parties later reached a bipartisan agreement to fund department operations outside the agencies involved in Trump’s mass deportation push. Republicans then passed a party-line bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection for the duration of Trump’s presidency without immigration enforcement reforms, The Guardian reported.

The stopgap measure does not resolve broader fiscal pressures. Al Jazeera reported that the national debt crossed $40 trillion last month and that affordability remains a major voter concern. Congress now faces a December deadline to complete full-year spending bills or confront another shutdown fight.