Dem
51
GOP
49
The Senate had to burn the midnight oil, but early this morning, the upper chamber passed a funding bill that had cleared the House earlier in the day. The measure will be signed by Joe Biden first thing today, and thus a shutdown has been avoided.
Technically, the government will go unfunded for a few hours, but nobody is willing to call that a shutdown, since there will be no government expenses that go unpaid. All told, the Congress approved $1.2 trillion in expenditures across the six departments that remained unfunded for FY 2023-24. The bill passed the Senate 72-24, with most of those 24 being Republicans, and the House 286-134, again with most of those 134 being Republicans.
Now that the lights will stay on, the biggest budget-related drama comes courtesy of... wait for it... Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). She is very much like a small child, in that she believes she is entitled to everything she wants, all the time. Since the spending bill is not everything she wanted, she announced she had filed a motion to vacate the chair. Don't stock up on popcorn yet, though. First, the House is not in session for the next two weeks. Second, Greene did not file it as a privileged motion, but instead as a regular motion. So, the matter can and probably will be referred to committee, where it can and probably will die. Greene herself said it was meant as "a warning, not a pink slip." Does she really think this sort of stunt is going to influence ANYONE going forward?
Also yesterday, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) announced that he's had enough, and he's going to resign, effective Apr. 19. His district is R+10, and so he's another member who could have stayed for years or decades, but instead is throwing in the towel. Once he departs, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will have a margin of error of just one vote, until special elections scheduled for May are held. Maybe Greene is going to wait until then to make a privileged motion to vacate; if all the Democrats joined her, she'd only need two other Republicans to toss Johnson out on his ear.
In any case, Congress can now move on to other important things, like impeaching... someone. And then the whole budget dance will start all over again in about 6 months. (Z)