Biden signs three-month funding bill to avert US government shutdown

Joe Biden signed a three-month government funding bill on Thursday, averting an imminent shutdown and delaying a fuller conversation about government spending until after the November elections.

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, had initially tried to pass a more rightwing proposal that combined a six-month stopgap funding measure with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

Johnson nodded at the widespread opposition to the bill within his conference, as 82 Republicans voted against it amid complaints of wasteful government spending.

Once the House passed the continuing resolution on Wednesday afternoon, the Senate moved immediately to take up the bill. The upper chamber passed the bill just two hours after the House did in a bipartisan vote of 78 to 18.

The Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, thanked Johnson for his work to avoid a shutdown, but he lamented that it took Congress until the last minute to pass a funding package when it seemed evident for weeks that a narrow stopgap would be necessary.