U.S. House to vote on government funding stopgap

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

Republican lawmakers have teed up a Continuing Resolution that would extend government funding at current levels until Dec. 4, punting the government shutdown deadline by two months.

Federal agencies run out of money on Oct. 1, when the new fiscal year begins. If lawmakers do not appropriate new funds or temporarily freeze funding at current levels, the government shuts down.

The CR would ensure agencies are funded until after the 2026 midterm elections, buying lawmakers more time to finish passing all 12 annual appropriations bills. Currently, not a single one has passed both chambers of Congress.

Yet, although the CR is free of any policy riders, many congressional Democrats have already signaled they will oppose it, risking a third costly government shutdown during the 119th Congress.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told lawmakers Monday that “Democrats do not want a government shutdown,” but that “at a minimum” she needed to see Border Patrol funding removed in order to support the funding stopgap.

Democrats triggered the longest government shutdown in history in February, a 76-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, over demands that Republicans implement drastic reforms to ICE and Border Patrol.

Democrats only voted to end the shutdown when Republicans stripped immigration enforcement funding from the Homeland Security appropriations bill entirely, though Republicans later infused ICE and Border Patrol with three years-worth of cash via a budget reconciliation bill.

Because the CR before Congress extends funding for all federal agencies, including immigration enforcement agencies, DeLauro and other Democrats are opposing the bill — particularly given the two most recent fatal shootings by ICE agents in Houston and Maine.

“Border patrol problems aside, [Republicans have] put forward a plain bill, absent controversial riders, and containing most of the standard authorities we enact in these stopgap measures. That is a welcome change from most of the regular bills that have come to the floor this summer. But we still do not have all the information we need,” DeLauro added.

“We still have two months before the end of the fiscal year and should not rush through an incomplete funding extension. We ought to wait for the information we need to get it right the first time.”

But House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, lambasted congressional Democrats’ “persistent, habitual, never-ending obstruction,” which has “made it difficult to govern” for the Republican trifecta.

“Both parties have participated in these shutdowns. I will readily concede that. But the first time a clean CR was rejected just to keep the government funding at the last year’s funding levels until we could meet out a compromise solution,” Arrington told lawmakers Monday, referencing the first 43-day government shutdown Democrats triggered in Oct. 2025 over demands that pandemic-era healthcare subsidies be extended.

“It was the longest shutdown in history before the next Democrat shutdown. This time, it was shutting down the Department of Homeland Security…They held the American people’s security hostage until we used a reconciliation bill to break the obstruction and fund ICE and CBP,” Arrington added.

“But here we are, after riding a long train of Democrat obstruction abuses, to do something before November as the window closes. That is not just meaningful—it is important. It is critical. It is urgent.”