House passes one-week funding extension for Homeland Security

A night of political brinkmanship ended late Friday when the House and Senate approved a one-week temporary spending bill to avert the partial shutdown at midnight of the Department of Homeland Security.

Lawmakers in the House voted 357 to 60 to approve the one-week measure hours after an earlier effort led by the Republican leadership to finance the agency for three weeks suffered a stunning 203-224 defeat, with 52 Republicans joining Democrats to scuttle it.

In the Kansas delegation, Reps. Lynn Jenkins and Mike Pompeo voted for the week extension. Reps. Tim Huelskamp and Kevin Yoder voted against it. Earlier, Pompeo and Jenkins had voted for the three-week extension and Huelskamp and Yoder voted against it.

The loss, a major embarrassment for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, left the Republican-led chamber little choice but to accept the one-week measure or face questions about the GOP’s ability to run Congress and get things done.

The Senate, which earlier in the day passed a bill to fund DHS through September, approved a similar one-week measure to ensure the agency would remain fully open for the time being.

House Democrats provided 174 votes for the one-week bill after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to her caucus urging them to support it.

“We are asking you once again to help advance passage of the Senate passed, long-term funding of DHS by voting in favor of a 7-day patch that will be on suspension in the House tonight,” Pelosi wrote. “Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week.”

However, a Boehner spokesman Friday night denied that a deal has been reached.

If Congress had failed to approve the funding by midnight Friday, some 30,000 employees would have been furloughed from a department that includes the Border Patrol, Secret Service, Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bulk of DHS’s agencies would continue to operate through a shutdown with workers who wouldn’t receive paychecks until the congressional stalemate ended.

The underlying issue behind the standoff was President Obama’s executive actions late last year on immigration. The Senate passed a DHS funding bill last month sent over from the House, but stripped its provisions that would curtail Obama’s immigration actions. His executive order would shield more than 4 million immigrants from deportation.

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 7:43 PM with the headline "House passes one-week funding extension for Homeland Security."