Senate Sends CR to President

Yesterday, shortly after action was complete in the House, the Senate passed HJ Res 123, Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018, by a largely bipartisan vote of 82 to 14. The 14 Nays included 6 Republicans and 7 Democrats (and 1 Independent). The CR would extend the current spending (at FY 2017 rates) until December 22^nd, 2017.

No procedural votes preceded the consideration of the bill indicating that a strong deal had been achieved to ensure passage of the bill. The 30 minutes of debate allocated for the bill only drew two speakers; one of which spent the time praising his home State of Alaska; 8 minutes of the ‘debate’ went unused.

The Congress now has an additional two weeks to try to come up with a final spending deal for FY 2018. There has been some discussion in the press of potentially seeing an additional CR carrying the current spending over until January.