No Shutdown for Now: Congress Passes Week-Long Homeland Security Patch
This is what happens when a party is led by a gaggle of immature grand standers who think that a series of double dog dares amounts to sound strategy.
Two hours before a midnight deadline, Congress has narrowly averted a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security for one week, setting up another funding showdown for next Friday.
Hours before a midnight deadline, the House easily approved a one-week extension of the funding. The vote was 357-60. It required two-thirds of members’ support to pass.
President Barack Obama later signed the bill.
The move means that DHS will not experience a shutdown at midnight, but it also fails to resolve the impasse created when the House initially lashed together the agency’s budget and so-called “riders” that would gut the president’s immigration proposals. Some House conservatives said that Obama’s actions are unconstitutional and must be stopped - even at the cost of a DHS funding lapse.
The one-week funding vote came after an embarrassing defeat for House Speaker John Boehner earlier Friday. The House failed to pass a three-week extension of the funding as fifty-two Republicans and almost all Democrats voted against the measure. Conservatives called the stopgap bill a cave to the White House because it did not address immigration; Democrats derided it as a temporary solution and vowed not to “bail out” Boehner by giving him enough support to get the bill over the finish line.
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