The U.S. House of Representatives approved a short-term funding bill on Tuesday, averting a federal government shutdown at the end of the month.
The legislation, already approved by the Senate, passed in the House with bipartisan support, 370-48, and now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his expected signature, NBC News reports.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said the measure gives Americans “certainty that the government will remain open” and “certainty that our service members will be paid.”
Congress has been unable to pass a full-year funding bill amid partisan disagreement over Trump’s request for a $1.5 trillion military budget while the U.S. wages an unpopular war in Iran.
Cole had accused Democrats of blocking a funding deal to hurt Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is running for reelection in what is considered a vulnerable state for Republicans, NBC reported.
The bill funds the government until early December, after the midterms. Cole said that the outcome of the elections could dramatically affect how Congress gets things done.
“We will act like we can come back and things will be exactly the way they were when we left. They won’t be,” he told NBC. “Everybody’s calculations will change. Everybody’s point of view will change. It’ll have an enormous impact about what happens for the balance of the year.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., agreed but said she is prioritizing a full government funding deal before the new year begins.
“The midterm election will have an effect, but the goal is that we need to pass appropriations bills before the end of the year,” DeLauro said. “That is a bipartisan view of where we need to go with the committee, and so that’s what we are going to press for. Let’s get to the finish line.”
She told The Associated Press that the bill passed Tuesday was an improvement over what passed in the House earlier this summer. Democrats overwhelmingly rejected funding for the Department of Homeland Security in previous attempts at a government funding bill. In the most recent funding bill, they had prevented DHS from transferring funds to U.S. Border Patrol, according to DeLauro. She also said it delays a proposal that would give political appointees within the Trump administration more authority to stop federal grants from going out to programs they don’t believe align with the president’s agenda.
Democrats believe the proposed rule could allow the administration to move money away from Democratic-led states, including disaster relief.
“Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” DeLauro told the AP.