The Senate’s compromise to end the ongoing partial government shutdown survived an important hurdle on Monday night, teeing up the legislation for a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most bills get a chamberwide vote, advanced the upper chamber’s deal with the White House with little internal discord among Republicans on the panel.
But the measure could face issues on the House floor during a second procedural hurdle called a ‘rule vote,’ which needs a simple majority of lawmakers to unlock debate and a vote on final passage. House votes normally fall along partisan lines, and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will need virtually all GOP lawmakers to vote in lockstep to succeed.
The current partial shutdown, affecting roughly 78% of the federal government, is in its third day after Congress failed to send its remaining spending bills to President Donald Trump’s desk by Jan. 30.
House lawmakers passed an initial set of bipartisan bills to finish funding the government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026, Sept. 30, but Democrats rebelled against the plan en masse in protest of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Senate Democrats walked away from the deal in protest of its funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after federal law enforcement shot and killed a second U.S. citizen during anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demonstrations in Minneapolis.
Trump has responded by removing Customs and Border Protection (CBP), whose agents shot the second person, from the Midwest city, and replacing senior officials leading the crackdown there.
But Democrats are demanding further guardrails, like judicial warrants, to restrict agents in Minneapolis even further.
The resulting compromise would fund areas of government that were caught up in the political standoff — the departments of War, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Education — while simply extending the current federal spending levels for DHS for two weeks.
That two-week span is aimed at giving lawmakers time for more bipartisan negotiations on a longer-term deal.
The Senate passed the new deal on Friday, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is sharply divided from his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in his position.
Despite Schumer and Senate Democrats negotiating the plan with Trump’s White House, Jeffries told Johnson not to rely on House Democrats’ support to pass the bill.
It’s a stunning division between the top two Democrats in Congress, and one that will leave House Republicans largely on their own for much of the process of ending the shutdown.
But Trump managed to quell another rebellion on the conservative side earlier on Monday, easing at least one headache for House GOP leaders.
At least four House Republicans signaled they could vote against their own party during the rule vote on Tuesday over its exclusion of an unrelated measure requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.
The president posted on Truth Social earlier Monday demanding ‘NO CHANGES’ to the current deal, effectively undercutting conservatives’ push for the legislation.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., had been leading a group of conservatives threatening to tank the rule vote if the SAVE America Act was not attached.
But Luna told reporters on Monday night that she and Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., both changed their minds after getting assurances from the White House that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would force a vote on the bill — called the SAVE America Act.
‘As of right now, with the current agreement that we have, as well as discussions, we will both be a yes on the rule,’ Luna said. ‘There is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow Senator Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing that that is going well and he is considering that…so we are very happy about that.’
It’s not clear if it’s enough for other House Republicans, however, some of whom are upset over the new deal opening up the need for bipartisan discussions on reining in Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Johnson can only lose one House GOP vote for the funding deal to survive a chamber-wide rule vote.
In the meantime, nearly 14,000 air traffic controllers are expected to work without pay. Members of the military could also miss paychecks if the shutdown goes on long enough, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be limited in its ability to communicate public health updates to Americans.
