WASHINGTON — The House easily cleared a stopgap spending bill Tuesday that would keep federal agencies funded through Dec. 11, avoiding the risk of a partial government shutdown this fall.

On a lopsided vote of 370-48, the House sent to President Donald Trump’s desk a short-term funding patch despite objections from hard-right conservatives over various policy concerns. The Senate passed the measure on a 90-6 vote early last month and Trump was expected to sign it in short order.

Tuesday’s House vote marked the earliest completion in recent memory of a continuing resolution that is typically passed in late September or later, as Congress scrambles to head off a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins without full-year appropriations in place. Current funding is set to expire on Sept. 30.

Lawmakers often seek to hold up the must-pass CR to exert leverage to win concessions from leadership on their own policy priorities. But this year’s swift passage signaled a determination by both parties to avoid a politically perilous shutdown in the run-up to the November midterm elections.

Republicans voted 193-19 for the bill, while Democrats backed it by a margin of 176-29.

GOP leadership brought up the bipartisan bill under suspension of the rules, which fast-tracks the House’s approval of legislation that has at least two-thirds support of the chamber.

However, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., faced blowback from his right flank over the strategy, which prevents those members from potentially using the regular House rules process to stall the legislation to try to get policy wins. They had sought to bring up the stopgap bill under a rule.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus have criticized the bill over language delaying implementation of a ban on certain THC-infused hemp products. There’s also frustration over language that would hold up a proposed rule by the White House budget office giving political appointees more power over the federal grant approval process.

Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters on Monday that he would vote against a rule setting up debate on other pieces of legislation, including a measure to streamline approval of infrastructure projects, if it didn’t also include the Senate-passed continuing resolution.

“If the rule comes out without the CR in it, with a hemp amendment to undo what the Senate did, I’m voting against the rule,” Harris said late Monday.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, another Freedom Caucus member, criticized the stopgap measure in a letter to Budget and Appropriations committee chairs on Tuesday morning, saying the bill continues “funding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) while it administers and enforces the current regulatory framework governing mifepristone and other abortion drugs.”

He also took aim at the lack of an extension of a prohibition on Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood. Republicans temporarily approved the prohibition, which has since lapsed, as part of the 2025 reconciliation law.

However, House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., pushed back on Roy’s criticism later Tuesday.

“We’re not funding abortions. Hyde is the law of the land,” Cole said, pointing to a long-standing rider upheld by the stopgap bill that is aimed at restricting taxpayer funding for abortions. “Donald Trump is the president of the United States that administers that money. I don’t see that as a danger.”

“I’m willing to sit down and talk to anybody, but I think this is more about maintaining leverage,” Cole said, adding that the push to subject the funding patch to a rule was an attempt “to blackmail the rest of us.”

Spending bill’s evolution

The House had passed a more bare-bones funding extension last month without many of the “anomalies,” or deviations in current spending, requested by the Trump administration.

Changes made by the Senate were essential to drawing support from Democrats in both chambers.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., a senior appropriator who opposed the House GOP’s initial short-term funding patch, also touted language put in by the Senate that Democrats say will prevent the transfer of further funding to the Border Patrol without new restrictions on federal immigration agents. The issue was a key factor behind Democrats’ overwhelming opposition to the House’s earlier plan in July.

She said the revised CR includes “really critical language” to stop Border Patrol abuses, while halting an “outrageous OMB rule that would let political appointees make decisions about grants.” Both issues are sure to face renewed battles come December, when final appropriations bills or another CR must be passed.

The legislation approved Tuesday includes anomalies that were part of the original House bill, such as language to provide funding flexibility for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, disaster relief and wildland fire funds. But the Senate added other anomalies, including for 2028 Olympic preparations and housing assistance.

The CR blocks a White House request for $1 billion to begin building “Trump-class” battleships, though the measure includes other administration requests to accelerate funding for Navy shipbuilding programs.

It also includes a basic extension of funding for the nation’s surface transportation programs through Dec. 11 as work on a full reauthorization continues. And it would extend for two years economic pacts with sub-Saharan African countries and with Haiti.

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(Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.)

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