Clock Is Ticking on Congress’s Shutdown Fight
(Editor’s note: This piece first appeared in Lyceum on August 27, 2026.)
Congress will not finish its appropriations work on time this year. The money it appropriated for the current fiscal year expires on September 30. The government will shut down after that if Congress does not approve a stopgap measure—or continuing resolution—extending that funding into the new fiscal year.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate took the initial step to avoid a shutdown before leaving Washington for their annual August recess. The House voted 220 to 205 to approve the Continuing Appropriations Act (HR 9770) on July 21. The Senate voted 90 to 6 to approve the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act (HR 6500) on August 8. But passing two CRs does not prevent a shutdown.
To do that, the House and Senate must pass the same legislation in identical form before September 30. Lawmakers therefore face two challenges. They have little time to act. And they disagree over what should be included in the final CR. They can mitigate the first challenge by choosing the right legislation to serve as the vehicle for the final agreement.
Congress generally resolves differences between the House and Senate in one of two ways. The chambers can appoint a conference committee to negotiate a compromise and then vote on the resulting conference report. Or they can exchange amendments—commonly called ping-pong—until one chamber accepts the other’s position.
Both approaches can produce the same result. But getting there takes time, especially in the Senate.
The House can adopt special procedures by majority vote to expedite consideration of legislation. The Senate works differently. A single senator can prevent the chamber from waiving its rules simply by objecting to a unanimous consent request. Senate leaders may then have to use cloture to overcome procedural obstacles before the chamber can act.
That makes the choice between HR 9770 and HR 6500 consequential.
If lawmakers use the House-passed HR 9770 as the vehicle for the final CR, the Senate must first take up the bill. Absent cooperation, doing so could require cloture on the motion to proceed. Senators would then have to substitute their preferred CR for the House text, potentially requiring another cloture vote, before voting on cloture and passage of the underlying bill as amended and sending it back to the House.
Only then would the two chambers be positioned procedurally to resolve their differences by exchanging amendments or going to conference. Using HR 6500 as the vehicle eliminates many of those steps.
The Senate already amended that House-passed bill with its CR before leaving Washington and sent it back to the House. The House can now amend the Senate amendment with whatever compromise lawmakers negotiate and send it back to the Senate. The Senate can then agree to the House amendment and send the bill to President Trump.
If opponents refuse to cooperate, Senate leaders would need only one cloture process to end debate on the final CR. HR 6500 is also the better legislative vehicle if lawmakers decide to go to conference instead. But that route requires additional steps and takes longer.
The House and Senate must first vote to go to conference on HR 6500 and appoint conferees. Only after that can they vote on the resulting conference report. In the Senate, opponents could force a cloture vote on the final agreement. But they cannot filibuster a motion to proceed to its consideration.
Choosing HR 6500 cannot reconcile lawmakers’ disagreements over what should be in the final CR. It can, however, give them more time to resolve those disagreements by reducing the number of procedural steps required after they reach an agreement.
And lawmakers may need all the time they can get because their disagreements are substantial.
The House CR extends current funding through December 4 and includes a limited number of anomalies—provisions that depart from the prior year’s funding rate or from requirements that would otherwise apply under a straightforward extension of current law.
The Senate CR extends funding through December 11 and contains more anomalies than the House bill. More significantly, it includes three legislative divisions unrelated to extending annual appropriations. Those provisions extend expiring authorizations, surface transportation programs, and several veterans programs. The Senate bill also exempts the budgetary effects of those divisions from statutory controls like the PAYGO scorecard. It ensures that they won’t count against the amount of money appropriators have to spend in the bill.
Lawmakers must decide which provisions belong in the final bill, which anomalies survive, and when the CR should expire. Procedure cannot settle those disagreements. But it can determine how much time they have to settle them.