The US Capitol. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a GOP-authored funding bill that will keep federal agencies funded until Sept. 30, with a $892.5 billion defense topline that slightly exceeds that of fiscal 2024.

The full-year continuing resolution (CR) passed in a 54-46 vote largely along party lines, preventing a government shutdown before a midnight deadline. Ten Democrats voted with Republicans on an earlier procedural vote that allowed the bill to break filibuster.

Unlike a typical CR, which keeps government funding at the previous year’s levels and does not allow the Pentagon to start new programs, the measure approved for FY25 includes a slight funding boost as well as provisions meant to give the Pentagon more flexibility. Namely, the bill:

• contains updated funding totals for Navy shipbuilding accounts, adding money for a third Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and additional ship-to-shore connectors, and cutting almost all funds for the Constellation-class frigate;
• allows the Pentagon to start new programs, provided they were funded in the draft FY25 defense appropriations bills approved by either the House or Senate;
• provides $8 billion in general transfer authority; and
• approves multi-year funding authority for CH-53K Heavy Lift helicopters, T408 engines, and USS Virginia Class submarines.

Democrats had sought a monthlong CR that would have granted congressional appropriators more time to hammer out FY25 spending bills, and they have criticized the Republican-penned bill for handing President Donald Trump additional authorities to redirect funding to his own priorities. However, faced with a March 14 deadline, House and Senate Democrats failed to get on the same page.

Though higher than FY24 levels, the CR passed today still falls under caps set for FY25 by Congress in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, with nondefense spending $15 billion under the limit and defense under by almost $3 billion.

The House passed the bill Tuesday evening in a 217-213 vote that largely adhered to party lines. With a 218-214 split in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson could only afford to lose one GOP vote if all Democrats voted against the bill. House Democrat leadership whipped its members to oppose the bill, but in the end Johnson was successful in rounding up the numbers needed to get the bill across the line, with Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie as the lone GOP defector.

The House adjourned for a weeklong recess on the heels of the successful vote, leaving Senate Democrats with a dilemma. Unlike the House, where a bill can pass via a simple majority, a funding bill moving through the Senate must first proceed through a “cloture vote” that requires 60 votes — meaning Senate Republicans were dependent on gaining the votes of at least eight Democrats to pass the bill. 

While House Democrats urged their colleagues in the Senate to follow their lead and vote against the CR, some Senate Democrats expressed concern that shutting down the government would have a more negative impact on the country, including potentially empowering Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to make greater cuts to the federal government.

On Thursday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, took to the Senate floor to announce that he would vote for the continuing resolution, reversing course from the position he espoused on Wednesday.

“For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option … but I believe allowing Donald Trump to take much more power via a government shutdown is a much worse option,” he said. “Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”

Schumer’s decision set off a firestorm of criticism from many Senate Democrats, as well as House Democrats who overwhelmingly voted against the bill. 

House Democratic leaders took the extraordinary step of leaving an ongoing retreat and returning to Capitol Hill to hold a news conference imploring Senate Democrats to hold the line against the bill.

“We do not want to shut down the government, but we are not afraid of a government funding showdown,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY. “And we will win that showdown because we stand on the side of the American people.”

Asked whether Schumer acquiesced to Republicans, Jeffries demurred, stating that was a question best left to the Senate and that the position of House Democrats is “very clear.” He declined to comment when asked whether the Senate needed new leadership and whether he retains confidence in Schumer.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement calling the decision between the CR and a government shutdown a “false choice,” urging Democrats to “fight back for a better way.”

Meanwhile, Trump, in a Friday morning post on Truth Social, lauded Schumer’s decision, stating that it “took ‘guts’ and courage!”

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led the charge against the CR in the upper chamber, telling lawmakers in a floor speech this afternoon that they should follow her in voting against cloture and against the bill itself.

“Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House,” she said in a speech on the Senate floor. “If you refuse to put forward an offer that includes any Democratic input and you don’t get Democratic votes, that’s on Republicans.”