By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
It seems that despite their vast differences, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have decided that they wouldn’t benefit from a government shutdown right before the midterms. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Donald Trump has suddenly refrained from temper tantrums over what Congress has failed to do to advance his extremist agenda, particularly when it comes to his hopes of blowing up state election rolls and/or restricting voting by mail. The Senate easily (by a 90-6 vote) passed a stopgap-spending bill in early August, before the latest congressional recess, to keep the government going until December 11. On Tuesday, the House followed with a 307-48 vote rubber-stamping the Senate measure. The White House has signaled that the president will sign the bill, averting a possible government shutdown when current funding runs out on September 30.
The bill passed under suspension of the rules to avoid potential hang-ups in the House Rules Committee, and in the end only 19 Republicans and 29 Democrats could bestir themselves to oppose it. Republicans holdouts were mostly House Freedom Caucus militants upset about an obscure dispute over hemp regulation, along with the bill’s language delaying an OMB plan to allow suspension of grants to blue states fighting the administration. Some Democratic progressives voted against the bill because it didn’t restrict or claw back money being used by ICE.
