WASHINGTON D.C. — As outgoing Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-19, handled the gavel in the House of Representatives as its speaker pro tempore for a second day, he voted in favor of the House government funding plan Friday, which will keep the federal government funded through March 14.
The bill, which required a 2/3 majority for approval, passed by a 366-34 vote late Friday afternoon. Thirty-five House members did not vote on the measure. The original version of the original bill did not pass the vote was held Thursday, which Molinaro voted in favor of as the speaker pro tempore.
If the bill — known as a continuing resolution — did not pass, the government would have shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Friday's bill contained $100 billion in disaster funding, $10 billion in banking aid for rural farmers, and funding to repair the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland.
Removed from the bill was a provision President-elect Donald Trump wanted, that would have suspended the federal debt limit.
The previous version, which was voted on on Thursday, failed with 235 members voting against it, 174 voting in favor. Twenty members chose not to vote and one member voted “present.”
Molinaro checked off things he believed Thursday's bill accomplished in a post Thursday on social platform, X, including a “Clean CR, disaster relief, support farmers, raise the debt ceiling before a crisis.”
“This is the right path forward," he wrote in his post before Thursday's vote. "Respect taxpayers with a government that’s smaller, smarter and more efficient. President Donald Trump is right, Republicans and Democrats should support this.”
Only two Democrats voted in favor of the previous version of the bill, along with 172 Republicans, 38 Republicans joined the remaining 197 Democrats in their objection.
If the bill did not pass Friday after Thursday's version failed, all nonessential government functions would have stopped. Millions of government employees, including members of the military, would not have received paychecks ahead of the holidays. Air traffic controllers and TSA agents would have been required to work without pay and the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration would have been unable to conduct inspections and national parks would close.
Molinaro tweeted out earlier Thursday afternoon that the bill wasn’t a “‘Christmas tree’ of spending,” and would give Trump the time and room to deliver a “smaller, smarter, more efficient government.”
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious," Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday. "It's laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,"
Molinaro called Jeffries out on the social platform X.
“A clean extension of spending that responds to Americans confronting disaster and avoids a debt crisis is not extreme," Molinaro said on X. "It’s responsible and averts a shutdown.”
The bill is now headed to the Senate for approval.
