House, Senate pass resolution to avoid a federal government shutdown

Congress, perpetually unable to do its job, is at least good at kicking the can down the road, as evidenced by the latest continuing resolution that passed both houses on Wednesday, which, thankfully, will keep the federal government open past the Nov. 5 election.

The House voted 341-82 to pass the CR earlier today, ahead of a 78-18 vote in the Senate to send the funding measure to the desk of President Biden.

The compromise measure did not contain a key item on the wish list of far-right Republicans, a voter-suppression bill that would require prospective voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship to be able to register to vote.

Which sounds mostly harmless on its face, until you get into the particulars: that whatever your citizenship status, if you don’t know have a birth certificate, Social Security card or passport at the ready, good luck.

A certain Donald Trump, among others, was pushing this legislation, which Republicans styled the SAVE Act, presumably because they’re trying to save their continued political relevancy by trying to make it harder for people to vote.

The “no” votes on the CR were from the likes of Bob Good, the lame-duck Fifth District Republican who got himself primaried by Trump in the spring, and lost.

Good, in a tweet ahead of the House vote, noted his opposition to the CR on Twitter, including in his list of grievances the claim that it “wastes taxpayer dollars on woke policies” and “funds the agencies destroying our country,” and one final one: the measure “does nothing to secure our elections.”

Put Rob Wittman, a Republican running for re-election in the First District – think: the Richmond suburbs and Hampton Roads, Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula – more in the held my nose and voted for it category.

In a statement explaining his “yes” vote, Wittman, like Good, noted his support of the voter-suppression bill, calling it “a commonsense piece of legislation,” and that the CR itself is “not the solution I prefer,” but “the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances.”

Seventh District Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is leaving Congress in early January to run for governor in the 2025 cycle, was also a “yes” vote, noting that when “Congress even entertains the possibility of a government shutdown, it is bad for Virginia.”

“Not only would many of Virginia’s thousands of federal employees, contractors, and military families be forced to work without pay or lose their wages, but small business owners, restaurant workers, and our Commonwealth’s overall economy would feel the consequences,” Spanberger wrote in a thread on Twitter.

More from that thread:

“Hyper-partisanship on Capitol Hill has real impacts on the Virginians I serve — and these families, workers, and businesses deserve better. Instead of working in a bipartisan way to fund our government, the House GOP is yet again forced to kick the can down the road.

“While I’m glad that both Republicans and Democrats came together to keep the doors of our government open until December, Virginians are sick and tired of the political games and looming sense of déjà vu.

“Speaker Johnson must bring bipartisan appropriations bills up for a vote that will pass in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and make it to the President’s desk. Hardworking Virginians should not be slapped with the consequences of Congress’s inability to get the job done.”

And then we got a joint statement from the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine:

“Nobody hurts more than Virginia when Congress fails to do its job of keeping the government open. With just a few days until the government funding deadline, we are glad Congress did the right thing and passed a stopgap bill that will renew funding until December 20. While we should not rely on continuing resolutions to govern, we are glad to know that this bill will help avoid a painful government shutdown. We look forward to working with our colleagues these next three months on long-term funding legislation, and we remain committed to ensuring that any final package includes dedicated dollars for specific projects in communities all throughout Virginia.”