Sep 4, 2026 · 33 min · 9 segments
Congress avoided a shutdown fight until December, but passed on several sticky problems it will need to address after Election Day. CQ Roll Editor in Chief Jason Dick and CQ Roll Call Budget Editor…
David LermanGuest
Jason DickHost
They'd been off several weeks campaigning or raising money, whatever they're doing.
And they had some business take care of most, especially the continuing resolution that the Senate had passed right before they left at the beginning of August.
This would basically set up just a continuing resolution to keep government funding level until December 11th.
We figured it would pass, but the Republican majority would need Democrats to pass it.
What were the hangups that we saw that could possibly ruin the House's plans to pass this at the beginning of the week?
Yeah, I think we were all a little shocked that they actually passed this funding patch not only on time, but actually a few weeks early, right up to the September 30 deadline.
This is, I think, the earliest they've ever been able to pass this kind of a funding extension, which kind of shows the determination from both parties how eager they are to avoid a government shutdown this fall, especially in the run-up to the midterm elections, right? And so there was really a willingness from both sides to just say, hey, Quit the shenanigans.
Let's just push this through so that we don't end up with a shutdown because neither side benefits from a shutdown.
And so we did see this unusually early completion weeks ahead of time, weeks before they needed it to extend government funding, as you said, through mid-December.
The Freedom Caucus, House Freedom Caucus, the sort of hard right part of the Republican Party was upset about a few things.
There's always potential for shenanigans on a must pass legislation like this one.
And that is why typically they're a heavy lift, right? Because you always have a few, some small group of holdouts who say, I'm not going to vote for this unless you do X.
And that's why Speaker Mike Johnson invariably has to cut all these deals on the House floor or off the floor, making concessions to win enough votes to hold the vote open for an hour or more sometimes to get the votes he needs.
It was less of a chore this time, but this time, not to get too into the weeds, but this time he rammed it through because he had bipartisan support.
They'd been off several weeks campaigning or raising money, whatever they're doing.
And they had some business take care of most, especially the continuing resolution that the Senate had passed right before they left at the beginning of August.
This would basically set up just a continuing resolution to keep government funding level until December 11th.
We figured it would pass, but the Republican majority would need Democrats to pass it.
What were the hangups that we saw that could possibly ruin the House's plans to pass this at the beginning of the week?
Yeah, I think we were all a little shocked that they actually passed this funding patch not only on time, but actually a few weeks early, right up to the September 30 deadline.
This is, I think, the earliest they've ever been able to pass this kind of a funding extension, which kind of shows the determination from both parties how eager they are to avoid a government shutdown this fall, especially in the run-up to the midterm elections, right? And so there was really a willingness from both sides to just say, hey, Quit the shenanigans.
Let's just push this through so that we don't end up with a shutdown because neither side benefits from a shutdown.
And so we did see this unusually early completion weeks ahead of time, weeks before they needed it to extend government funding, as you said, through mid-December.
The Freedom Caucus, House Freedom Caucus, the sort of hard right part of the Republican Party was upset about a few things.
There's always potential for shenanigans on a must pass legislation like this one.
And that is why typically they're a heavy lift, right? Because you always have a few, some small group of holdouts who say, I'm not going to vote for this unless you do X.
And that's why Speaker Mike Johnson invariably has to cut all these deals on the House floor or off the floor, making concessions to win enough votes to hold the vote open for an hour or more sometimes to get the votes he needs.
It was less of a chore this time, but this time, not to get too into the weeds, but this time he rammed it through because he had bipartisan support.
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