U.S. Senate sets first vote on stopgap funding bill Thursday -aide

The U.S. Senate is expected to hold an initial procedural vote Thursday on a week-long stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown ahead of a midnight Friday deadline, a Senate Democratic aide said.

The House of Representatives passed the stopgap legislation on Wednesday. The bill must now go to the Senate to be approved before it can go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday.

The stopgap measure will extend funding for another week – until Friday, December 23 – to give congressional negotiators time to finalize a broader, full-year government funding deal with new topline spending levels.

The bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, is intended to give lawmakers more time to pass a sweeping, expected $1.7 trillion measure to keep federal agencies operating through the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2023.

Passage of the measure, which senior Senate Democrats and Republicans back, would forestall the risk of a year-end partial government shutdown.

“We should move quickly to avert a shutdown today, without any unwelcome brouhaha that has caused shutdowns in years past,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor earlier on Thursday. “Both sides are going to spend the day working on an agreement to get the weeklong CR done.”

Congressional negotiators announced earlier this week a framework for the full-year “omnibus” package, but did not provide details on the amount they had agreed on or what was included in it.

It is expected to tally about $1.7 trillion and include aid for Ukraine's fight against Russian forces and a bill reforming the way Congress certifies U.S. presidential elections.

While top Senate Republicans signed onto that deal, House Republicans rejected it, wanting negotiations delayed until after they assume the House majority on Jan. 3, which would give them more leverage to cut domestic spending.

The last time Democrats and Republicans allowed government funding to lapse, a record-long, 35-day partial shutdown ensued, spanning from Dec. 22, 2018, until Jan. 25, 2019. The main stumbling block was over then-President Donald Trump's demand for large new investments in a U.S.-Mexico border wall that many saw as ineffective and wasteful.

So far, however, negotiators have not provided many specifics about the agreement.