CONGRESS AVERTS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, BUT ACTION CAUSES DIVISION WITHIN POLITICAL PARTIES
Stopgap funding measure signed by President Trump; California’s Senators voted no
By G. A. McNeeley
March 18 2025 (Washington D.C.) — Congress avoided a government shutdown on March 14, just a few hours before the funding deadline. The stopgap measure to fund the government until September 30 was signed by President Donald Trump on Saturday.
The stopgap would fund government operations through the remainder of this fiscal year, but it would also slash non-defense funding by roughly $13 billion and increase defense spending by about $6 billion over current budgets (including billions for deportations, veterans’ health care and the military).
Many Democrats, including California’s Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, opposed the measure due to the non-defense cuts and because Republicans refused to include language in the bill putting guardrails on Trump and Elon Musk’s ability to continue dismantling the federal bureaucracy unchecked. The Democrats also advocated for a shorter, four-week stopgap to keep the government running on current funding levels in an effort to buy more time for appropriators to strike a deal on a bipartisan funding package. Republican leadership interest in those negotiations diminished weeks ago.