WASHINGTON — The House will vote Wednesday on ending the government shutdown after the funding bill cleared a key committee hurdle overnight, advancing through the House Rules Committee with all Republicans supporting the measure and all Democrats against.
The panel’s hearing to advance the bill lasted more than six hours, kicking off Tuesday evening and ending shortly after 1 a.m. on Wednesday. Democrats attempted to force votes on amendments dealing with the COVID-19-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of this year and other issues opposed by Republicans, though all failed.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made a surprise appearance at one point, testifying in favor of his own amendment to extend those subsidies for another three years.
The lengthy hearing saw members on opposite sides clash several times, with Democrats repeatedly accusing Republicans of robbing Americans of their health care and taking a “vacation” for several weeks while remaining in their districts during the shutdown. “I am sick and tired of hearing you all say we had an eight-week vacation,” House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said. “I worked every day. I don’t know about you. I don’t want to hear another soul say that.”
Democrats and some Republicans also piled on a provision in the funding bill that would allow GOP senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 for secretly obtaining their phone records during former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation. “I think there’s gonna be a lot of people, if they look and understand this, they’re going to see it as self-serving, self-dealing kind of stuff. And I don’t think that’s right,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said. Roy said he was trying to figure out how to force the Senate to repeal the provision “without amending it here.”
The bill will now get a House-wide “rule vote,” a procedural test that, if it passes, allows lawmakers to debate the legislation itself. Lawmakers are expected to then hold a final vote sometime on Wednesday evening on sending the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
The Senate broke through weeks of gridlock on Monday night to pass the legislation in a 60-40 vote, with eight Democrats joining Republicans to reopen the government. Trump signaled he was supportive of the legislation in comments to reporters on Monday. “We’ll be opening up our country very quickly,” he said.
The bill would extend fiscal year 2025 federal funding levels through Jan. 30. It would also advance legislation to fund the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration; the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction; and the legislative branch — three of the 12 individual bills that make up Congress’ annual appropriations, paired into a vehicle called a “minibus.”
In a victory for Democrats, the deal would also reverse federal layoffs conducted by the Trump administration in October, with those workers getting paid for the time they were off. A side deal struck in the Senate also guaranteed Senate Democrats a vote on legislation extending the Obamacare subsidies, though Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has made no such promise in the House.
Meanwhile, staffing shortages have been causing chaos at U.S. airports, with air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers forced to work without pay since last month. Millions of Americans who rely on food assistance were also left in limbo during the shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history by roughly a week.
