After Two Record-Breaking Shutdowns in Ten Months, the Senate Votes 90-6 to Fund the Government Past the Midterms — and Pushes the Real Fight to December 11
Government funding was set to lapse at midnight on September 30, 2026, which would have opened a shutdown on October 1 — four and a half weeks before the November 3 midterm elections. On Sunday, August 2, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) released the text of a continuing resolution holding most agencies at current levels through December 11. The Senate passed it 90-6 in the early hours of Saturday, August 8, before leaving for the August recess. The bill is a stopgap, but it is not a clean one. Democrats won three things House Republicans' version did not contain: language closing a transfer loophole that would have let the administration move money appropriated for other programs into Border Patrol; a temporary block on a proposed OMB rule giving senior political appointees a larger role in reviewing and cancelling federal grants; and rejection of the White House's request for $1 billion to begin work on the new "Trump-class" battleship. It also carries adjustments for WIC, shipbuilding and the Disaster Relief Fund. The six no votes were an unusual left-right pairing — Cassidy, Paul, Kaine, Markey, Warren and Sanders — with progressives objecting to funding the administration's agenda at all and fiscal conservatives objecting to another stopgap. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said voting yes would be "signing a check for President Trump to continue his illegal, reckless agenda." The politics behind the 90-6 margin are straightforward: the country has already been through three funding lapses in a year, including a four-day shutdown from January 31 to February 3 and a record 76-day DHS lapse from February to late April. Neither party wanted a fourth one running through the campaign. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) framed it as owing the public predictability. What the vote does not do is settle anything. It moves the deadline to December 11 — after the election, into a lame-duck session, with the OMB grants rule, immigration enforcement funding, hemp-derived THC products and the unfinished full-year appropriations bills all still live. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), asked what it would take to finish a budget by then, listed "whiffs of frozen hell, donkeys flying." The House still has to pass the measure when members return in September before it reaches the President's desk.
“House Republicans are in charge here, and we’re continuing to do the grown-up thing and make sure we get the job done. And we’re happy that we just passed that continuing resolution to fund the government through early December, and then we’ll continue through the process after the election.”