House passes slimmed-down government funding bill despite wave of GOP defections

The House on Wednesday passed, despite a wave of Republican opposition, a bipartisan stopgap spending bill well ahead of the Oct. 1 government shutdown deadline.

House Speaker Mike Johnson relied on Democrats to pass the stopgap, which advanced to the Senate on a 341-82 vote. All the no votes were cast by Republicans.

The three-month spending patch also easily passed in the Democrat-run Senate by a vote of 78 to 18. The White House also largely supports the bill but noted a slew of issues with the legislation like not including more disaster funding or addressing the Veterans Affairs expected $12 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year.

The bill was viewed as an option of last resort for Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, who earlier failed to pass a more conservative six-month stopgap that included the SAVE Act that would require people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The stopgap that passed Wednesday wards off a partial government shutdown ahead of the Nov. 5 election and puts spending fights on hold until December.

House Republicans who rejected the bill said it did not include spending cuts, lacked the SAVE Act and set up another colossal, year-end omnibus bill to fund the entire government.

Rep. Chip Roy, who sponsored the SAVE Act, said that the stripped-down stopgap was “the natural outcome of the opposition” to Mr. Johnson’s original plan.

“It’s more of the same games that get bemoaned by the very people complaining about the games,” Mr. Roy said.

Mr. Johnson’s latest offering was the product of bipartisan negotiations among congressional leaders and the heads of the House and Senate spending committees.

It included a $231 million boost to the Secret Service following calls from lawmakers to provide more resources to the police force after a second foiled assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. It also required the Department of Homeland Security to fully comply with the assassination task force investigating the attempts before the money is disbursed.

It included millions for the presidential transition and inauguration, and security that comes with that process, but it lacked nearly $2 billion for Virginia class submarine construction that Republicans wanted and $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency that Democrats wanted.