The stopgap law that keeps agencies open also carries highway and transit money and other authorities that matter to California, and both parties enter the lame-duck session with different priorities.
Congress returns to Washington on Monday with federal agencies funded only through Dec. 11, and the House calendar leaves little room to spare. The 2026 House calendar published by Majority Leader Steve Scalise shows 16 days in session between Monday and the deadline: Nov. 9 through 12, Nov. 17 through 20, Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, and Dec. 8 through 11. The calendar lists four more session days, Dec. 14 through 17, after funding is due to lapse.
The current stopgap, H.R. 6500, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, became law on Sept. 2. It funds agencies at fiscal 2026 levels until Dec. 11 or until full-year spending bills replace it. The House agreed to the Senate’s version on Sept. 1 by a vote of 370 to 48, with large majorities of both parties in favor, according to PoliData’s summary of the roll call.
To avoid a lapse in funding, both chambers must pass either full-year appropriations or another stopgap, and President Trump must sign it, by Dec. 11.
The administration’s position
The White House supported the current stopgap. In a Statement of Administration Policy issued Aug. 3, the Office of Management and Budget described the measure as “a clean, short-term continuing resolution” that would “proactively provide additional time for the full-year appropriations process to continue moving forward while preventing another dangerous shutdown that harms hardworking families and forces Federal employees to go without pay.” It added: “President Trump strongly opposes another futile Government shutdown.”
The administration has also pressed Congress to finish the Pentagon’s budget. Russell Vought, the budget director, said in October that the White House expected Republicans to fund all or most of the Defense Department’s $1.5 trillion request through a party-line reconciliation bill during the lame-duck session. “We’re not planning on failure,” he said at a Hudson Institute event, Inside Defense reported.
What each party has said
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told the House on Sept. 1 that the stopgap would give lawmakers time to “assess and move forward with further appropriations measures in November and December.” He said the committee had reported all 12 fiscal 2027 bills by mid-June.
Speaker Mike Johnson said last week that the midterm results would not change the work ahead. “Our job is nowhere close to being finished yet,” he said, according to a Cox Media Group report. “The outcome of an election on one night doesn’t change that a bit.” Democrats are set to take control of both chambers on Jan. 3, which leaves the current Republican majorities a narrow window. Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, urged colleagues to “lock in America First wins” in what he counted as 20 legislative days left in the Congress, The Center Square reported, a figure that matches the House calendar through Dec. 17.
Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the committee’s senior Democrat, has drawn a line on immigration enforcement money. “We will not support a single cent in further funding without substantial reforms to protect our communities from abuse,” she said of additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. Representative Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said the speaker could use the lame-duck session “to reconcile, not with Democrats, but with the American people.”
The administration has made immigration enforcement a central priority, and Republican leaders have declined Democratic policy conditions in earlier funding standoffs this Congress; in each case Democrats ultimately dropped their demands, The Center Square reported.
What is at stake for California
The stopgap does more than keep agencies open. The same law extends, to Dec. 11, federal highway and transit programs that were due to expire Sept. 30, with Highway Trust Fund spending authority running to Dec. 12. Caltrans, regional transit agencies and Bay Area transit operators depend on those formula dollars. A bipartisan five-year surface transportation bill cleared the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in May but has not reached the floor.
The law also carries to Dec. 11 the Defense Production Act, the authority Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked to order the restart of Sable Offshore’s pipeline in Santa Barbara County, a dispute now before the Ninth Circuit. It extends Veterans Affairs programs that include housing and services for homeless veterans, the Environmental Protection Agency’s fee authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Patent and Trademark Office’s fee-setting authority, which matters to Silicon Valley’s inventors.
One provision matters to California universities, cities and nonprofits that receive federal grants. Until Dec. 11, Section 157 of the law bars the administration from finalizing a rewrite of the Uniform Guidance, the rules that govern federal awards, which it proposed on May 29.
The lame-duck agenda also includes the annual defense authorization bill, which the House passed in July and which stalled at a Senate procedural vote, and, possibly, a House vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, has said he will force. The Senate’s vote on Monday to advance a bipartisan permitting package, covered separately by The Inquirer, is a separate track.
This week
The House meets at noon Monday, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m., according to the majority leader’s schedule. The week’s floor list includes six Energy and Commerce bills on nuclear licensing, seven Small Business Committee bills and a retirement-plan bill for charities and schools. No spending bill is on the schedule this week. The next deadline in the stopgap falls on Nov. 20, when the Office of Management and Budget must send the appropriations committees a list of rescissions that continue under the law.
The press office for House Appropriations Committee Democrats did not respond Sunday to a request for comment from The Inquirer.
Adaeze Monroe covers Congress, the White House and federal agencies, with a focus on what Washington’s decisions mean for California, for the Washington Bureau. More from Adaeze Monroe
