WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, voted 370-48 to keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11, sending a Senate-written stopgap to President Donald Trump and kicking the next shutdown fight past the midterms.

The Clerk of the House recorded the result as Roll Call 286 at 2:03 p.m. ET: a two-thirds "yea-and-nay" on a motion to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to H.R. 6500. The tally was 370 yeas, 48 nays and 14 not voting. Republicans voted 193-19, with 6 not voting. Democrats voted 176-29, with 8 not voting. One independent voted yea. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., voted yea.

The Clerk still labels the vehicle the "AGOA Extension Act," the Africa trade bill the House passed in January. The Senate gutted that text in August and substituted the continuing resolution. What the House actually adopted is a short-term extension of current-year funding — not a budget, and not the 12 regular appropriations bills Congress is supposed to write before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

The Senate passed the same package 90-6 in the early hours of Aug. 8 (Roll Call Vote 228). Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voted present; three senators did not vote. Associated Press reported that lawmakers were still smarting from two historic shutdowns over the past year and wanted to avoid another before voters go to the polls. One of those was the 43-day government-wide shutdown that ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, 2025.

Tuesday's House vote used suspension of the rules: limited debate, no amendments, and a two-thirds threshold instead of a simple majority. Leadership chose that path because Democratic votes were required in a narrowly divided chamber, and because Freedom Caucus members had already objected to both the bill and the process. The math worked. Forty-eight no votes were not enough to stop a 370-vote pile-on.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, voted nay. CNBC, citing Punchbowl News, reported that Harris had said he would try to block the rest of the GOP's agenda for the week over the spending measure. Punchbowl separately reported his objection to a provision delaying a ban on certain hemp products. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also voted nay. In a Monday letter to Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, Roy wrote, according to CNBC: "I have serious concerns about simply extending the status quo. Members should be clear about what passage of this legislation would mean: Congress would once again affirmatively fund policies we have spent months fighting to change."

CNBC said Roy's letter also flagged continued Planned Parenthood funding and the absence of a ban on hemp products that contain THC. Subsequent coverage of the letter, citing POLITICO, reported Roy arguing the CR does not renew a protection that had kept federal dollars from flowing to Planned Parenthood. Those are the objectors' claims. The House did not take a separate recorded vote on either item.

The Senate text is not a "clean" CR. Associated Press, PBS (also AP), and CBS News reported that it delays a White House Office of Management and Budget rule that would give political appointees more power over federal grants — requiring a senior appointee to review awards so they advance the president's priorities. The National Association of Counties said the delay runs through Dec. 11. OMB has framed the rewrite as accountability. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told AP the proposed rule drew a flood of negative comments. Either way, Congress is using a must-pass funding patch to freeze an executive-branch grants fight instead of legislating the standard.

The same package, AP and PBS reported, includes language meant to block the administration from transferring money to the Border Patrol. CBS described it as closing a loophole Democrats said had allowed those transfers. That is policy by anomaly: a one-line lock on a must-pass CR, not an immigration bill members had to defend on its own.

The hemp fight is the same pattern. AP reported the bill delays a national restriction on intoxicating hemp-derived THC products by one month. Congressional reporting put the original effective date at Nov. 12 and the CR delay at Dec. 11. Harris and other Republicans wanted the restriction to take effect. The hemp industry wanted time for a longer "regulatory bridge." The CR split the difference by moving the date, then dared anyone to vote against keeping the lights on.

None of this is how appropriations are supposed to work. A continuing resolution copies last year's levels, tucks in the side deals leadership could not pass as standalone bills, and tells agencies to wait. The House's own July stopgap would have run only to Dec. 4 and, NACo said, did not delay the OMB grants rule. The Senate wrote a longer, messier version. The House today swallowed it rather than open the bill to amendments that would have sent it back across the Capitol.

Trump still has to sign it. Until he does, current funding still lapses at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. If he does, the cliff simply moves to Dec. 11 — closer to Christmas travel and closer to the argument Congress already declined to have in September. Members get to campaign. The government stays on autopilot. The next shutdown date is already on the calendar.

Sources