House on a path to ending government shutdown Tuesday afternoon

WASHINGTON — House Republicans voted Tuesday to approve a funding plan to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday, putting the bill on track to pass the full House.

A procedural vote of 217-215 leads to a final vote later in the afternoon, which requires a simple majority of the House before it can be submitted to President Donald Trump for signing into law. Trump said he would sign it “immediately.”

The legislation will guarantee annual funding to the federal government through the end of September, with the sole exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.

A vote on the bill was delayed a day after Democrats privately indicated they would not provide the large number of votes needed to fast-track it on Monday. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not indicate how he would vote, but said his members had “diverse perspectives” on the matter.

After a conference meeting Tuesday, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., would not say how she would vote on the bill when asked about it before the procedural vote.

The vote on the “rule” resulted in drama as the House Republican Party’s one-vote margin showed its challenges. It remained open for an extended period when Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., unexpectedly joined Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., in voting against it. Massie held his ground against the spending bills and was considered virtually impossible to unseat. Rose, who complained that the Senate wasn’t doing enough to pass the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to vote, ultimately said “yes.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the party’s top funding negotiator in the House, said she would vote for the bill and predicted it would pass. She said she spoke in favor of the bill at the meeting, as did other Democrats.

“I believe this is an opportunity to isolate DHS and go at it, hammer and tongs, tooth and nail — whatever phrase you want to use, rather than having to figure out what’s going to happen to five other bills and all of these departments,” DeLauro said. “There is incredible bipartisan, bicameral support on these bills. So why waste that? And then take the next 10 days, next Friday, and just bring up DHS.”

The deal to mobilize DHS funds for two weeks, alongside other funding bills, was negotiated between Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the White House after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti sparked a national outcry.

After the Senate passed the package last Friday by a 71-29 vote, Trump gave it a boost with House Republicans by calling on lawmakers to pass it as written, eliminating demands from some party members to make changes.

The measure opens a frantic 10-day window for Congress to negotiate a DHS funding deal as Democrats demand reforms to rein in ICE and CBP.

The new DHS funding expiration deadline is February 13.

Achieving bipartisan agreement will be a significant challenge.

Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said it will be “very difficult” to get a funding agreement from DHS before the next deadline.

“There are big differences,” he said. “I would expect — and I’ve heard there might be just another one, that we would wait a little bit longer until those differences can be resolved … at least, probably, March 1.”