(Washington) Congressional leaders announced a deal Sunday to extend the government’s budget through mid-December and avoid a federal shutdown before the November election.
The 2025 budget was supposed to be passed by Congress by the end of September — the end of the fiscal year — to keep all services funded. But with Congress far from reaching agreement on an annual budget, a temporary funding measure called the Continuing Resolution (CR) was widely expected.
Republicans have been demanding for weeks that any budget be tied to new requirements that voters prove their U.S. citizenship, a measure pushed through under pressure from Donald Trump, who continues to claim without evidence that he was the victim of voter fraud in 2020.
A vote on a bill combining the voting legislation, the “Save Act,” and a six-month extension of funding failed Wednesday in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The deal announced Sunday excludes the Save Act and extends funding only through Dec. 20.
That pushes the funding debate well past the Nov. 5 elections, in which control of the House, Senate and presidency could be decided by narrow margins.
The next Congress will convene shortly after the New Year, while the presidential inauguration – of Republican Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris – will take place on January 20.
“I am pleased that bipartisan negotiations quickly produced a government funding deal free of cuts and poison pills, but this same deal could have been reached two weeks ago,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The bill, which the House of Representatives is expected to vote on this week, also includes an additional $231 million for the Secret Service, a significant increase for the agency that protects top American political figures following two assassination attempts on Mr. Trump.
It also provides an additional $47 million in funding for security in Washington during the presidential inauguration.