After having agreed to take it up late last week, the Senate passed this afternoon a four-bill appropriations package by a vote of 84 – 9. The bundle, a Senate substitute to a House-passed bill, includes the following FY2020 funding bills: Agriculture; Commerce-Justice-Science; Interior; and Transportation – Housing and Urban Development. This represents the first four spending bills passed by the Senate for the current fiscal year, which started October 1.
Senate Republican leaders had hoped that the passage of the first bundle would led to momentum to bring up a second package of bills that would include, among others, the Defense and Labor-HHS-Education measures. The Democrats have continuously objected to the two bills moving because of the DOD funds that would be used to build a Southern wall and fights over language on abortion in and the perceived lack of enough funding for the Labor-HHS bill. After the Senate agreed to the first four bills, it failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to get cloture to move forward on the second set of bills. The vote was 51 -41.
Although the Senate has now passed four appropriations bills, there still is no agreement between the two chambers on how much funding is available overall for FY2020. The top line must be agreed to first before compromises on individual bills can be reached.