The House moved Monday toward voting on a funding package that could end a partial government shutdown that began after midnight Saturday, advancing the bill out of the Rules Committee in a party-line vote and setting up a floor vote Tuesday.
What passed the Rules Committee will allow the House to consider a bipartisan package that already cleared the Senate last week. If the full House passes the package and President Trump signs it, the lapse in funding that has affected multiple federal departments would end. The package includes a two-week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), creating a tight window for negotiations over immigration enforcement reforms.
Two Republicans who had been obstacles, Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) and Tim Burchett (Tenn.), said after a White House meeting they would support advancing the package in a procedural vote. Luna, who had sought attachment of the SAVE Act — a measure requiring in-person proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections — said discussions at the White House and with senators explored using an old parliamentary tool called a standing filibuster to try to get the issue before the Senate. Senate GOP leadership, including Sen. John Thune, has indicated the Senate would resist adding the SAVE Act and warned it would be difficult to pass such changes.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said attaching the SAVE Act would kill the bipartisan deal and risk a prolonged shutdown, calling it a poison pill and arguing it would amount to voter suppression. House conservatives pressing for the change argued they could seek a Senate vote later, but any alterations would require sending the measure back to the Senate and extend the funding lapse.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, after meeting with Republicans on the Rules Committee, said he was confident the House could pass the funding package by Tuesday and urged Republicans to keep the focus on funding rather than attaching unrelated measures. He acknowledged logistical challenges of getting members to Washington and the narrow Republican majority, but said he expected to secure the votes. President Trump also urged rapid passage, posting that the House should send the Senate-passed agreement to his desk “WITHOUT DELAY” and without changes, saying he would sign it immediately.
The narrow GOP margin in the House tightened further Monday when Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat from Texas who won a special election over the weekend, was sworn in. With Menefee’s addition Democrats have 214 members to Republicans’ 218, meaning Johnson can now lose only one Republican vote if all members are present and voting on party lines.
That narrow math has made the procedural path complicated. House Democrats told GOP leadership over the weekend they would not provide votes to expedite the bill under suspension of the rules, which would fast-track passage. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said it was “hard to imagine” Democrats stepping in to move the rule, though he left open support on final passage for the bipartisan funding bills that comprise the package. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said she plans to vote for final passage and called the two-week DHS extension leverage to press for the immigration reforms Democrats seek — but she did not commit to supporting the rule that governs debate, a key procedural hurdle.
House Homeland Security Committee Democrats urged colleagues to oppose the package unless substantive DHS reforms are secured before additional funding is approved for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Democrats have demanded changes after recent deadly encounters involving federal agents, calling for limits on roving patrols, tighter warrant rules, required coordination with state and local law enforcement, a uniform code of conduct subjecting federal agents to similar use-of-force policies as local police, mandatory body cameras, and policies about masks and identification. Republicans have signaled willingness to agree on some reforms but resisted others, and Thune called it “really, really hard to get anything done” within the two-week DHS window.
The shutdown has already affected agency operations and public services. The Labor Department said it would delay the Employment Situation report for January until funding resumes. Other major departments and subagencies with lapsed funding include Defense, State, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Treasury. Several agencies posted notices that website updates and normal operations would be limited until full appropriations are restored.
Political dynamics in the House could still disrupt the path forward. Some conservative members, including Rep. Chip Roy, have signaled demands for changes to the DHS provisions, while others have attached high-priority items like the SAVE Act. Democrats have warned that adding such measures would doom the bill in the Senate and prolong the shutdown. Johnson has said Republicans will likely have to move the rule on their own and has been conducting individual outreach to wavering members.
If the House approves the package and the president signs it, the lapse in funding will end and agencies will resume normal operations. If the House modifies the Senate-passed package, it would go back to the Senate and risk prolonging the shutdown. The two-week DHS extension sets a short timeline for negotiations on difficult immigration-enforcement reforms at the center of the dispute, with both sides indicating areas of potential agreement but significant differences remaining.