Senate Passes 3-Bill Spending Minibus Forward of Recess, however Dems Proceed Resistance Over DHS
As we’ve seen already this week, Congress is making progress on completing its work to fund the government through the end of fiscal year 2026 in September, with a deadline of January 31 quickly approaching. The U.S. Senate passed a new set of spending bills – a minibus – on Thursday, which now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature.
The Senate on Thursday passed a package of three spending bills, hitting the halfway mark in its push to fund the government for fiscal 2026 ahead of the end-of-month deadline.
Senators green-lighted the second three-bill minibus, 82-15. The package included measures to fund the Commerce, Justice, Energy and Interior departments through the end of September.
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Overall, Congress has OK’d six funding measures, with the remaining half-dozen expected to come down the rails in the next two weeks.
However, the process still has some bumps in the road lawmakers will have to overcome.
As my colleague Ward Clark wrote on Wednesday, “the U.S. House of Representatives passed a two-bill package of funding for the departments of Treasury and State. The bill passed by a 341-79 vote.” One of the bumps in the road that remains, though, is Democrats putting up resistance over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
READ MORE: House Passes New Treasury-State Funding Duo to Dodge Shutdown
That issue has not been resolved in the lower chamber, something that Senate Majoity Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he was hopeful about appropriators hammering out, in remarks on the Senate floor on Thursday:
“Appropriators are working on another package of the four remaining bills, which I hope will receive the same bipartisan backing that has characterized the appropriations cycle thus far. And before the end of the month the Senate will need to process all of these funding bills and get them to the president’s desk.”
All told, the spending measure passed by Thune and the Senate will cost $174 billion.
The Senate recessed after passing the minibus Thursday, so will take up the House’s legislation later, with the latter working on the last half of the spending bills next week, as The Hill reported in its story linked above:
The House is set to move on the remaining of measures next week. The lower chamber is set to be out of town during the final week of January.
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Senators are in recess through next week during the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday.
We’ll keep you posted.
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