Senate Passes HJ Res 44

According to GovTrack.us a roll-call vote this morning in the Senate on HJ Res 44, the two week continuing resolution extending the current appropriations through March 18th, resulted in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote (91 to 9) in favor of the bill. Only three Democrats, five Republicans and one Independent voted against the resolution. Along with keeping the federal government funded for another two weeks, the legislation extends the current authorization for CFATS until the 18th.
Now we have another two weeks to see if the House Republicans and the Senate Democrats can craft a compromise amenable to the base of each party. It should be interesting.

Senate to Consider HJ Res 44 this Morning

Yesterday the Senate took a slightly unusual move and agreed by unanimous consent to move for immediate consideration of HJ Res 44 today at 11:00 a.m. EST. This would have been expected on Friday to provide for last minute action to avoid a shutdown, but it is unusual to consider this so quickly this early. We’ll see if the action this morning produces any amendments to the resolution that would have to be reconsidered by the House, or if this just sales through.

Multiple news outlets are saying that this will pass easily in the Senate (like it did in the House yesterday) as apparently no one wants to take blame for a government shutdown on the first round of the budget debate. If this passes we will have until March 18th for further action to be taken on the FY 2011 appropriations to keep the shutdown issue from arising again.

HJ Res 44 Passes in House

This afternoon the House passed HJ Res 44, Further Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011. The recorded vote, 335 to 91, showed that there was substantial bipartisan support for the short term extension of the current continuing resolution through March 18^th. There were 104 Democrats joining the Republicans voting for the proposal and six Republicans voting against.

Rules Committee Reports HJ Res 44 – Two Week CR

This evening the House Rules Committee met to consider a rule to provide for the debate of HJ Res 44, Further Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011. This is the continuing resolution that I blogged about this last weekend. The Committee approved H. Res. 115 that outlines the rules for that debate. This will be a closed rule with limited debate (one hour on H. Res 115 and then another hour on HJ Res 44) and no amendments; either approved in the Rules Committee or to be offered on the floor.

HJ Res 44 will almost certainly pass in the House on a party-line vote; maybe as early as tomorrow. There are indications that Sen. Reid will allow it to come to a vote in the Senate and that it will pass there on some sort of ‘bipartisan’ vote. At least that’s what a number of different news organizations are reporting. That would allow some additional time for a deal of some sort to be worked out with the Senate on revisions to HR1 that could be approved by both houses.