Senate Passes Stopgap Funding Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown

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The U.S. Senate passed a stopgap funding measure on Thursday night to keep the federal government running through mid-February. The 69-28 bipartisan vote averted a potential shutdown, that critics of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for larger employers were pushing for.

“I am glad that in the end, cooler heads prevailed. The government will stay open and I thank the members of this chamber for walking us back from the brink from an avoidable, needless and costly shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Thursday.

The Senate passed its resolution hours after the House of Representatives approved the measure 221-212 with the support of only one Republican. The measure now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) offered an amendment amounting to a partial shut down over the weekend.

“It’s not government’s job, it’s not within government’s authority to tell people that they must be vaccinated and if they don’t get vaccinated, they get fired. It’s wrong. It’s immoral,” Lee said of his amendment protesting Biden’s vaccine/testing mandate. Lee’s amendment was defeated.

Congress faces another hurdle this month as Treasury Department estimated the U.S. could reach the debt limit by Dec. 15., meaning the debt ceiling must be raised before that date or risk catastrophic default.