The Senate tonight passed a $1.1 trillion bill to fund most of the federal government through the current fiscal year, averting another partial shutdown amid sharp disagreements on regulating immigration, financial institutions and election campaigns.

The Senate’s bipartisan 56-40 vote, coming after an unusual Saturday session, cleared the way for President Obama to sign the spending bill, which he has said he will do.

Senate conservatives, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had tried to slow passage of the bill — forcing senators to work the weekend rather than return Monday. They objected that it did not “defund” Obama’s executive actions to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.

The upper chamber’s action follows a 219-206 vote by the House of Representatives less than three hours before a midnight deadline Thursday night. As in the House, both liberals and conservatives were unhappy with aspects of the spending bill.

When the final vote came just before 10, more Senate Democrats (21) voted against the bill than did Republicans (18), signaling the odd alliances created by the funding measure. One independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, also rejected the measure. (Here is the roll call.)

“There are many things in this bill that Democrats would not have included had we written the bill. But this bill is a compromise,” Majority Leader Harry Reid said, adding:

Since 2011, Congress has lurched from crisis to crisis, with the country constantly under threat of a shutdown or financial catastrophe. It is a bad habit, and the American people are sick of it. This bill is not perfect, but we can all be proud that we voted tonight to make America more secure, put our government on more sound footing than when this Congress began.

Not voting were Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California and Republicans Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim Inhofe, also of Oklahoma.

 

Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, eventually won a vote on a “point of order” on the constitutionality of  Obama’s actions to change the immigration system without Congress, but it was defeated 22-74. (Here is the roll call.) 

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., set to become majority leader when the GOP gains control of the Senate next month, was among 20 Republicans to vote against the Cruz-Lee measure.

“Suffice it to say I’m not happy with the strategy [Cruz] has come up with, I think it’s totally counterproductive,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters earlier in the day. “This reminds me very much of the shutdown last year where the strategy made absolutely no sense and was counterproductive.”

Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, was among conservative groups opposing the spending bill and urging stronger action to block the president’s unilateral move on immigration.

Michael Needham, Heritage Action’s chief executive officer, said that a vote against Cruz’s point of order would be “a vote in favor of unchecked presidential power and granting work permits and Social Security numbers to people who are in the country illegally.”

The Senate is expected to return to business at 10 a.m. Monday as the chamber’s attention shifts to presidential nominations, which may take days of procedural votes next week.

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The spending bill — dubbed “the CRomnibus” because it combines what Congress calls an omnibus spending bill with a continuing resolution, or CR — will fund most of the federal government until the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

But the measure funds the Department of Homeland Security, which includes agencies that enforce immigration laws, only through February. Congress will revisit that spending after new Republican majorities take over Jan. 6.

Obama last month announced he would shield 5 million or more illegal immigrants from deportation and allow them to apply for work permits.

Liberal Democrats, along with some conservatives, opposed provisions weakening some Wall Street regulations and loosening campaign-finance limits so that individual donors could give three times the current maximum to the national political parties.

The bill also provides $64 billion for military operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and $5.4 billion to fight Ebola in West Africa.

“This week leaves me with nothing but optimism about the prospects for reform and revival in the coming years,” Lee said yesterday. “A new era is coming in which Washington will once again be forced to work for the American people instead of the other way around.”

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The Senate’s Saturday session occurred after the House approved “bridge” language to allow the upper chamber more time.

House Speaker John Boehner and Obama, uneasy allies, had joined forces to rally enough House Republicans and Democrats to vote for the CRomnibus.

“It’s not a perfect bill,” Reid, D-Nev., said after House passage Thursday night. “But this bill is so much better than a short-term CR.”

  • Ken McIntyre, news director of The Daily Signal, contributed to this report.

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