WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday passed a bill that would fund the government through the end of September and bolster President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape the federal government, daring Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and her fellow Democrats in the Senate to endorse the GOP legislation or let the government run out of money at the end of the week.
If a funding bill isn’t passed by both chambers and signed into law by Trump by Friday night, a government shutdown will begin on Saturday. Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, introduced her own bill on Monday with her House counterpart, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., that would avert a shutdown without giving what she called a “slush fund” that the Trump administration could use to enact its agenda.
“If House Republicans don’t think they need us when writing a bill, why should they expect us to support the bill?” Murray said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “Instead of working with Democrats to invest in working people all across the country, and make sure our constituents have their voices heard in government funding, Speaker Johnson abandoned talks and rolled out a bill that includes major cuts.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., unveiled the GOP funding bill on Saturday, less than a week before the government funding deadline. It includes language that would give Trump greater latitude to redirect funding from programs he opposes and toward those he supports — something the president has already sought to do without congressional approval.
Congress faces the unusual mid-March deadline because Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk killed a bipartisan funding deal in December, when Democrats held the Senate majority and Murray was still chair of the Appropriations Committee. That panel, along with its House counterpart, normally passes 12 annual bills to fund the government with adjustments based on the nation’s evolving needs and priorities, but Johnson scrapped that process in favor of continuing funding at current levels for the remainder of the current fiscal year.
In a brief interview on Tuesday, Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, said he supported the House bill because he backs his party’s effort to cut government spending and he wants to avoid a government shutdown.
“The government provides a lot of essential services for folks,” Baumgartner said. “I am someone that certainly came to Washington, D.C., with the goal of participating in right-sizing government, reducing waste, fraud and abuse, and I’m somebody that’s excited about the goals of the administration when it comes to trying to take a real hard look at unsustainable spending.”
The House bill passed on a nearly party-line vote, with just a single Republican voting against it, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and one Democrat in favor, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents a heavily Republican district in southwest Washington, often votes with Golden but joined the rest of her party in opposing the funding bill on Tuesday.
Rep. Emily Randall, D-Bremerton, said in an interview that she was open to a short-term spending bill as long as it “didn’t do damage to the programs that my neighbors depend on.”
“But when I was at town halls this weekend, I heard loud and clear from my constituents, including my federal workers, that they didn’t want me to vote for this,” said Randall, whose district includes the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and an unusual proportion of government employees. “I also feel like we needed safeguards against Musk’s dangerous activity, and Patty Murray and Rosa DeLauro have been at the table for months asking for that, and there was no willingness to give.”
Orion Donovan Smith’s work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.
