Congress passes government funding bill to avert shutdown until March

Congress passed a stopgap government funding bill on Thursday, with the Senate and House both approving the legislation on a bipartisan basis to avert a looming weekend shutdown.

The House voted the further appropriations through by a count of 314-108, allowing funding at current levels to continue until March 1 for the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, the Food and Drug Administration and military construction.

The 13-page bill also approved funding until March 8 for the Pentagon and all other federal agencies.

More than 100 House Republicans and two House Democrats — Mike Quigley of Illinois and Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts —  opposed the legislation, known as a continuing resolution, but there were still more than enough “yea” votes to clear the lower chamber’s required two-thirds majority.

A snowstorm forecast to hit Washington, DC, on Friday added urgency to the approaching spending deadline, but that didn’t stop many members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus from voting “no.”