WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday cleared a key hurdle to passage of a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of September, but it was unclear whether the agreement could pass the House and head off a confrontation before the midterm elections.

The legislation, the product of bipartisan negotiations among senators, would keep federal funding flowing at current levels through Dec. 11 and bar the Trump administration from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, a provision that Democrats had insisted on.

The 89-4 vote reflected enthusiasm in the Senate for avoiding any shutdown skirmishes in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, after two lengthy lapses in funding over the past several months. Three members of the Democratic caucus, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., voted against advancing the measure. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also opposed it.

But the bipartisan legislation’s fate was uncertain in the House, which recessed for the summer last week after passing its stopgap funding bill that was opposed by all but a half-dozen Democrats. That measure would run through Dec. 4 and did not include any prohibitions on the Trump administration.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Appropriations Committee, called the interim spending bill “a major step toward averting a damaging shutdown that only harms vital programs and federal workers.”

Democrats also cheered a measure they said would head off a crisis.

“For months, Democrats have been clear: we want to fund the government, avoid a shutdown, and pass strong, bipartisan appropriations bills that improve people’s lives,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

Lawmakers in both parties are eager to avoid the kind of spending fights that have consumed much of this congressional session, culminating in a pair of shutdowns.

The first was in October 2025, when Democrats sought unsuccessfully to use their leverage over federal spending to force the president to cut a deal on extending expiring healthcare subsidies.

The second was in February 2026, when Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security as they tried and failed to pressure Trump to agree to new restrictions on federal immigration agents following the killings of U.S. citizens amid his deportation crackdown.

That partial shutdown ended after Republicans agreed to strip immigration enforcement funding from their spending measure and instead provide it through a filibuster-proof budget bill that could be passed along party lines. The measure, enacted in June, ultimately included $70 billion for immigration enforcement.

In an effort to ensure that no additional money would go to Trump’s deportation campaign, Democrats won inclusion in the stopgap funding bill of a provision that would prevent the administration from diverting funds to the Border Patrol.

The legislation also includes language temporarily blocking the White House budget office from implementing a proposed rule that would allow the administration to cancel grants to recipients that did not conform to President Donald Trump’s political views and enable his team to steer significant funding to causes and organizations aligned with him. The prohibition would last only for the duration of the stopgap spending measure, lapsing Dec. 11.

“Enabling this rule would only give Trump the green light to take even more federal funding hostage,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “While Republicans rejected killing the proposed rule outright, I’m going to keep fighting to put a stop to it once and for all, and I will keep pressing my Republican colleagues to do exactly that.”

Also included in the bill is a delay in the implementation of a ban on intoxicating hemp, a priority of Paul, who regularly opposes spending bills. Paul has worked to kill the prohibition, which is scheduled to go into effect in November.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Catie Edmondson/Alex Kent
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