The House narrowly moved a massive spending bill forward Thursday, setting up a potentially close final vote. The bill has been criticized for easing rules on campaign finance and the banking industry. But its supporters say it’s a bipartisan deal that would fund most of the U.S. government until next October.
We’ll update this post with news from the debate over the bill and the vote.
The final vote on the $1.014 trillion measure could be a close one, if a preliminary House rules vote Thursday is any sign. No Democrats voted in favor, and more than a dozen Republicans defected to vote against.
Shortly after noon Thursday, the bill squeezed by in the rules vote, 214-212, after Republican leaders including Speaker John Boehner and Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry, walked the floor to bolster support, NPR’s Juana Summers reports.
You can read the bill, broken down by government agency, on the House Appropriations Committee site.
The bill has been labeled a “cromnibus” because it combines the traditional sweeping scope of an omnibus spending bill with a continuing resolution (CR). While it would fund most of the government until the next financial year, the Department of Homeland Security would be funded only through February, in a move that seeks to limit President Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi spoke out against the bill in the House on Thursday, sharply criticizing it for altering rules in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to let banks place both standard accounts and accounts that handle riskier derivative trades under the protection of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
“I was so really heartbroken … to see the taint that was placed on this valuable appropriations bill from on high,” Pelosi said. She told her colleagues that anyone voting for the legislation would be putting their name next to what she later called “a ransom” and “blackmail” that would profit Wall Street.
Due to the party breakdown in the House, if more than 17 Republicans vote against the bill, its future would depend on Democrats breaking ranks. If the spending bill doesn’t pass this week, Congress would likely be forced to enact a short-term continuing resolution to avoid a federal shutdown.
As we noted when the bill was agreed upon and published on Tuesday, the House is slated to hold the first vote on the spending bill today, with the Senate to follow.
The Hill tells us who voted with the Democrats against the spending measure:
“The 16 Republican defectors were Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Dave Brat (Va.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), Walter Jones (N.C.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Steve King (Iowa), Raúl Labrador (Idaho), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Bill Posey (Fla.), Matt Salmon (Ariz.) and Steve Stockman (Texas).”
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