{"id":32533,"date":"2026-08-08T13:26:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32533"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:26:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:26:44","slug":"senate-advances-funding-bill-to-avert-shutdown-before-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32533","title":{"rendered":"Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown before midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/thunejohn_080626nk05_w.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n        <iframe id=\"instaread_iframe\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Audio Article\" style=\"display:block\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n    <\/p>\n<p><\/instaread-player><\/p>\n<p>The Senate voted early Saturday morning to fund the federal government until Dec. 11 with the aim of averting another government shutdown before the midterm election, sending the bill to the House before leaving for a five-week recess.<\/p>\n<p>The continuing resolution (CR) passed<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>90-6\u00a0after Republicans spent days <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/6015367-gop-fight-hemp-ban-delay\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">haggling over a provision<\/a> inserted by the White House into the legislation that would have delayed a ban on hemp-derived THC products until December.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The legislation includes another provision demanded by Democrats and some Republicans on the Appropriations Committee, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), to <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/6005660-senate-spending-bill-trump-administration-scientific-grants\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">temporarily halt a rule from the White House budget office<\/a> that would give political appointees in the executive branch more authority over dispersing federal grants.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats insisted that the short-term funding measure needed to include language to freeze the White House budget office\u2019s rulemaking if it was to pass before September, according to senators familiar with the bipartisan negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also opposed the White House budget office rulemaking, calling it \u201cdeeply flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She asked Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a letter last month to withdraw the rule.<\/p>\n<p>The vote on the continuing resolution finally came early Saturday morning after Republicans spent hours battling among themselves over setting up a series of votes to fund the government, confirm Attorney General Todd Blanche, and require voters to show photo identification for federal elections.<\/p>\n<p>The final agreement to speed up consideration of the stopgap government funding measure was delayed for much of Thursday and Friday because of a <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/6017663-senate-nil-bill-funding-blanche-recess\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">disagreement over how to handle a separate bill<\/a> crafted by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to set new rules for recruiting and compensating college athletes.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced the early-morning vote to fund the government after Cruz agreed to delay floor consideration of the Protect College Sports Act until September.<\/p>\n<p>The measure now goes to the House, which is scheduled to return on Aug. 31, for a vote.<\/p>\n<p>Federal funding is due to expire on Sept. 30 without action from Congress.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Some House Republicans may not be thrilled about the provisions that quash the White House budget office\u2019s rulemaking to exert more executive-branch authority over congressionally funded grants.<\/p>\n<p>House fiscal conservatives, in particular, may balk at an extension of federal funding without spending cuts to reduce the deficit.<\/p>\n<p>But the passage of the Senate-approved measure is hardly in doubt after it passed with such an overwhelming margin in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Usually, Congress passes short-term government funding measures shortly before funding is due to lapse. But with the midterm elections less than three months away, lawmakers in both parties didn\u2019t want to risk until waiting until late September to fund the government.<\/p>\n<p>Both Republican and Democratic senators were eager to avoid another protracted standoff after enduring a record-breaking 43-day government shutdown in October and November.<\/p>\n<p>That grueling fight was followed by another fierce partisan battle over funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol that caused the Department of Homeland Security to shut down earlier this year. \u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s the most important thing for us to do,\u201d said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.). \u201cBecause I don\u2019t think we need to have the harbinger of a possible government shutdown. So, take it off the table. I think we all want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some Republicans had warned for months that Democrats would try to shut down the government right before the midterm election in order to accuse Republicans of not being up to the task of governing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think my Democratic friends are going to shut down the government right before the midterms,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) warned in the spring.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Thune made passing a funding bill to keep the government open past the election one of his top priorities before the August recess.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that he would use the budget reconciliation process to fund the entire federal government if Democrats blocked the continuing resolution under regular order. Budget reconciliation enables the minority party to circumvent a filibuster.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, however, Democrats were as eager as Republicans to avoid another shutdown.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cFor months, Democrats have been clear: we want to fund the government, avoid a shutdown, and pass strong, bipartisan appropriations bills that improve people\u2019s lives,\u201d Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Quick passage of the funding measure was complicated by an animated fight among Republicans over language slipped into the bill at the White House\u2019s request to delay the implementation of a ban on hemp-derived intoxicants such as delta-8, which are often sold at gas stations and not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n<p>Republican senators were caught off guard by the late addition of the provision delaying the ban and some of them vented their frustration with White House legislative staff over the issue at a tense lunch meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr8_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Some Republicans, however, supported delaying the ban on hemp-related products to support the hemp industries in their state, including Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky and Sens. Steve Daines (R) and Tim Sheehy (R) of Montana.<\/p>\n<p>The GOP critics of the proposal to delay the ban led by Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) attempted to strip it out of the bill but senators <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/6017926-senate-delays-hemp-thc-ban\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">voted 61 to 32 to table Budd\u2019s amendment<\/a> to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Budd warned on the Senate floor before the vote that Congress last year voted to ban the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp products<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr9_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThese products are made to look exactly like something a kid would want. Emergency Departments have seen a 461-percent increase in cases of pediatric cannabis poisoning. Most of those were children four years old or younger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Sheehy, in a video uploaded to social media, argued hemp-derived products have \u201cprovided in many cases a natural and healthy way\u201d for people suffering from pain, such as military veterans, to find relief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s been life-changing for a lot of people. A lot of them I know personally, which is why I\u2019ve taken up this cause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate voted early Saturday morning to fund the federal government until Dec. 11 with the aim of averting another government shutdown before the midterm election, sending the bill to the House before leaving for a five-week recess. The continuing resolution (CR) passed\u00a090-6\u00a0after Republicans spent days haggling over a provision inserted by the White House&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/thunejohn_080626nk05_w.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}