A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The clock is ticking in Washington on a potential government shutdown. Funding for federal agencies expires Friday at midnight.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Leaving the Senate with less than 72 hours to pass a stopgap spending plan. The Republican plan passed the House yesterday. Here is Speaker Mike Johnson after the vote.

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MIKE JOHNSON: It falls on the desk of Chuck Schumer. He is the leader of the Democrats on that side, and he must determine whether he wants to fund the government, do the responsible thing, or whether he wants to shut the government down.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR’s congressional correspondent is Claudia Grisales. So, Claudia, let’s start with that stopgap plan that passed the House. What’s it do?

CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Right. It extends a current stopgap spending plan through the end of the fiscal year - so through September at lower 2024 levels. This, in particular, was key to keeping hard-line members on board for these forced cuts that we would see in some cases. It’s a feature of these kinds of stopgap bills, also known as continuing resolutions, to keep spending flat. But it’s also a rarity to see Congress to fund the government this way for an entire year. Traditionally, we see them pass a full year appropriations plan, but bipartisan negotiations failed to come together in time, so Republicans turned to this partisan plan instead.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. When it comes to spending, Republicans have tended to disagree on a few things, or maybe a lot of things. How did they get this across the finish line?

GRISALES: Historically, we’ve seen hard-line members of the conference always vote no, but in this case, they were yes - some for the first time, voting yes on a plan like this. It says a lot about the influence of President Trump. For example, hours before the vote, Trump said he would lead an effort to have a member of the conference - this is Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie - primaried because he was the lone no-vote for the party in the House. And this happened, again, just before the vote, and within that same window, we saw a handful of holdouts fall in line who were undecided and vote yes.

MARTÍNEZ: All right. As Speaker Johnson said, it now goes to the Senate - Republican-led Senate. Can they get this thing passed before that Friday deadline?

GRISALES: Maybe, but it could be very close. In this case, they’re going to need Democrats to get this done. Senate majority leader John Thune, like Speaker Johnson, they’re putting the heat on Democrats to get on board or be responsible for a government shutdown.

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JOHN THUNE: As you all know, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass an appropriations bill. So we’re going to need some Democrats to vote for it.

GRISALES: And Republicans control just a slim majority in the Senate. That’s 53 seats. They’re going to need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, so they hope to get Democrats to hit that threshold. We know one Republican, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul says he’s a no-vote. While one Democrat John Fetterman has signaled he will be the first to join the GOP to get this passed.

MARTÍNEZ: So seven or more Democrats to vote yes. What are Democrats saying?

GRISALES: Well, they wanted a plan that would put limits on Trump’s ability to make cuts and dismantle the federal government. But House Democrats, while they largely held on this together to vote no, that’s not as clear for Senate Democrats. They were not forthcoming yesterday, in most cases, on how they would vote. And that happened in the case for Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who was asked several times about this but would not say what the plan was. So we know they’re facing pressure from both sides, and they don’t want to be blamed for a government shutdown. So it’s going to be a big unity test for Democrats.

MARTÍNEZ: All right. That’s NPR’s congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales. Thanks a lot.

GRISALES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.