Senate pushes ahead with plan to fund government through midterms

Washington — The Senate is set to move ahead Monday with a plan to keep the government funded beyond the midterm elections as lawmakers work to avoid another costly shutdown this fall.

Senate appropriators unveiled the continuing resolution on Sunday, which would keep the government funded at current levels, with some exceptions, through Dec. 11. But the measure sets up a clash between the Senate and the House when the lower chamber returns next month, with just a few weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government.

Before leaving town last month for a lengthy recess, the House approved a separate stopgap measure to fund the government into December, in a vote that fell largely along party lines and faced opposition from Democrats. Senate leaders announced at the time that the upper chamber would pursue a bipartisan approach, with the Senate's 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation requiring buy-in from both sides of the aisle, while also looking to work with the White House on making funding adjustments.

In the Senate, appropriators touted the upper chamber's continuing resolution Sunday for making those funding adjustments, known as anomalies, including to nutrition, national security and disaster relief programs.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, called the measure a "much-improved CR to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown that no one wants," and pointed to additional provisions secured in the Senate version.

"This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans' CR did not, and it rejects Trump's frivolous war spending wish list," Murray said in a statement. "Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans' CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money."

Democrats have been seeking a number of provisions in the stopgap measure. The Border Patrol portion, which they argue would prevent the administration from moving funds allotted to the rest of Customs and Border Protection to the agency, comes after Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement agencies earlier this year. The top Democratic appropriator in the House, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, said last month that she wouldn't support the lower chamber's stopgap measure because it failed to include a provision that zeroed out funding for Border Patrol. In a statement Sunday, DeLauro called the Senate measure "a clear improvement over the House Republican contin