House lawmakers will vote early Thursday afternoon on a short-term spending patch, allowing them more time to wrap their government funding work for the fiscal year.
How it’ll work: The legislation — just six pages long — will move through an expedited process requiring two-thirds support in the chamber for passage. Look to see how many Republicans Speaker Mike Johnson loses.
How does the suspension work? The bill maintains the so-called laddered approach for funding the government. Effectively, certain agencies see their funding lapse at different points. Those deadlines apply to the following bills:
March 8: Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA, Transportation-HUD, Interior-Environment and Commerce-Justice-Science bills
March 22: Everything else and the more controversial funding measures. Those include Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations.
Reminder: The top four congressional leaders and spending chiefs issued a joint statement Wednesday announcing an agreement on the first tranche of spending bills. They said the extension will enable “adequate time to execute on this deal in principle, including drafting, preparing report language, scoring and other technical matters, and to allow members 72 hours to review” the agreement.
Assuming everything goes to plan in the House, attention will turn to the Senate, where any senator could slow down consideration. More likely, though, is some sort of agreement on amendment votes to placate conservatives and allow speedy consideration of the bill. Jet fumes, as always, remain a powerful motivator.
