Senators voted Friday to pass legislation to prevent cuts to the District of Columbia’s local budget after city officials warned the District faced a $1 billion hit under a stopgap government funding bill approved by the Senate moments earlier.
The bill, which allows D.C. to continue operating at its adopted fiscal 2025 budget, passed by voice vote.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the measure was endorsed by both President Trump and House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), and intended to address what she described as a “mistake” in a larger funding bill that Congress passed just moments before.
“This bill would simply fix a mistake in the House [continuing resolution] that prevents the District of the Columbia from spending its own tax dollars as part of its budget, which Congress routinely approves,” Collins said.
“Congress approves the authorization of the expenditure of D.C. local funds, which are paid for by D.C. tax revenues,” she said.
Collins noted that previous stopgap legislation enacted last year included language approving D.C.’s fiscal year 2025 budget and that the “language was continued in the second” funding patch passed in late 2024.
While D.C. was granted what’s known as “home rule” in the 1970s, Congress still approves its budget during the appropriations process. Stopgap spending bills, like the one passed Friday, typically include language allowing D.C. to continue operating under whatever budget the city has approved, despite the federal government being held to levels from prior years. But that language was seemingly omitted from the latest stopgap.
As a result, D.C. officials have said the District would be forced to spend at its fiscal 2024 levels like federal agencies would under the stopgap — after running at its updated budget levels for roughly half a year.
Amending the larger government funding bill would have required the House — which left town after passing the measure earlier this week — to vote on it again and almost certainly caused a government shutdown.
The stand-alone D.C. bill still needs to be approved by the House and signed by Trump, and it’s unclear how soon the lower chamber will act on it. Neither the House nor Senate are in session next week.
It’s also unclear what impact D.C. would feel if the lower chamber doesn’t act until after recess. The Hill reached out to the mayor’s office for more information.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) – who joined Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Angela Alsobrooks (Md.) and Mark Warner (Va.) in pushing for the fix – told The Hill on Friday that he spoke with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser about the matter on Tuesday.
“We talked about it at some length,” he said. “The House is out next week, but we didn’t make this part of the CR vote, so it’s not like they have to amend it right away to avoid a shutdown. We made it a separate resolution.”
“But we got a commitment from President Trump that he would sign it,” he said, adding that he thinks Congress will “get it fixed – and if it takes till not next Monday, but the following, I think that’s fine, as far as D.C. goes.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised the legislation ahead of the vote.
“This legislation will make sure that we take care of the residents of the District. It will support law enforcement and firefighters and teachers and basic city services,” he said.
“This legislation is very good news for the residents of the District of Columbia. I am happy we are passing this bill today.”
Democrats and D.C. officials have sounded alarm since the unveiling of the stopgap funding plan over the weekend about what a potential $1 billion cut would have meant for the District over the next six months.
“D.C. gets 26 million tourists every year in 2026, when we’re going to celebrate 250 years,” Warner said from the floor ahead of the vote on the D.C. bill on Friday. “We want to show off D.C. and the whole region. If we allow this mistake to take place, D.C. will lay off cops, it’ll close school, it’ll shut down on trash removal.”
“Let’s correct this mistake. Let’s make sure that we show on our 250th anniversary the cleanest, safest city in America, and this will be a giant step of that,” he added.
Some Democrats, including Warner, had previously questioned whether the move was intentional by House Republicans, though others say they think it was also a mistake.
A Democratic-backed effort for consideration of an amendment to allow D.C. to continue to spend under the fiscal 2025 levels was blocked in a party-line vote as the House Rules Committee considered the funding bill Monday.
Because of the nature of a voice vote on Friday, a tally of who voted “yea” or “nay” is unavailable.
Asked how he voted on the bill on Friday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said, “We didn’t have to. It was voice.”
“They won’t pick up my trash, by the way,” he added. “I called everybody and they will not pick up my trash.”
Updated at 7:50 p.m. EST
