Congress on Friday approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill with a pair of overwhelming bipartisan votes, capping a frenzied final few weeks of legislating before lawmakers head home for the holidays and gear up for the 2016 election year.
The House moved first, passing the government funding bill on a 316-113 vote. The Senate followed suit just a few hours later, clearing the legislation —which also included a $680 billion tax package that the House cleared on Thursday — on a 65-33 tally.
“This legislation helps our economy, helps our national security, and strikes more blows to a partisan health law that hurts the middle class,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday morning. “I think it’s legislation worth supporting.”
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) also praised the package shortly after the House passed it. «This bipartisan compromise secures meaningful wins for Republicans and the American people, such as the repeal of the outdated, anti-growth ban on oil exports,» Ryan said in a statement. «The legislation strengthens our military and protects Americans from terrorist threats, while limiting the overreach of intrusive government bureaucracies like the IRS and the EPA.»
During a victory lap press conference, President Barack Obama called Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and wished him a «Merry Christmas.» McConnell said he missed the president’s call but will phone him back after a press conference.
«I thought talking to you all was more important,» he joked to reporters.
The big bipartisan vote for the spending package came after an 11th-hour lobbying blitz by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Obama administration officials.
Pelosi, who negotiated for days with Ryan over the final contours of the massive spending bill, stepped up her efforts on Thursday. Vote counts by party leaders earlier in the day had shown that Democrats were dozens of votes shy of the minimum 100 votes they had promised Republicans. Pelosi urged her colleagues to support the measure in public and private, and top Obama administration officials repeated the message in a closed-door meeting with Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday afternoon.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/democratic-support-for-omnibus-growing-216931#ixzz3uhxEuYoO
Pelosi continued calling members of the black caucus until late Thursday. Ultimately, 39 African-American lawmakers voted for the bill out of 44 CBC members.
During a post-vote press conference on Friday, Pelosi said the «big vote» came after members were given time to see what was in the package. New York Democrat Rep. Nita Lowey added that «there were some misunderstandings about what was and what wasn’t in the bill. The misunderstandings were key.»
Democrats and especially progressives were upset the measure ends a decades-long ban on oil exports and fails to address Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems. In a letter to her colleagues on Friday morning, Pelosi once again repeated that Ryan had vowed to «take action» on Puerto Rico-related legislation by the end of March 2016.
Pelosi argued that Democrats used their leverage in the negotiations to block dozens of «poison pill» riders that Republicans wanted. She told rank-and-file members that if they don’t support this bill, Democrats will end up with reduced spending on domestic programs they support.
«People ought to know that we started with an omnibus that had all the bad stuff in … and we’re ending with a bill that has all of the bad stuff out and all of the good stuff in,» Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said at a Friday morning press conference with Pelosi before the vote. «The riders that were taken out are literally too numerous to mention.»
«We will put this over the top,» he added.
Pelosi repeated a GOP argument: That without the oil embargo provision, GOP support for the omnibus would have collapsed.
«Many people had a screen over seeing what is good in the bill because of the oil. Even me. I said, ‘What am I doing? I’m empowering oil,'» Pelosi said. But without that provision, «I don’t think they would have passed it. They had to put Big Oil in the omnibus to get it passed.»
For once, House Republicans were not the source of the drama. Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) worked their side hard, and a majority of the 246 House Republicans backed the measure.
In contrast, the omnibus drama was minimal on the Senate side, where 27 Republicans and 38 Democrats voted in favor of the spending bill. Some of the GOP contenders running for president, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, vented their opposition against the spending bill in op-eds, but ultimately did nothing to slow down the measure’s inevitable passage.
“The combined omnibus spending bill and tax extenders package is a perfect example of a bipartisan compromise brought in good faith,” Reid said. “It wasn’t easy though. In fact, coming to an agreement on this package was a painstaking endeavor by Senate and House leaders, and House and Senate members.”
By John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman, Lauren French and Seung Min Kim
Politico December 18, 2015
