Congress averts shutdown after vaccine mandate fight

By The Hill
Posted on 12/02/21 | News Source: The Hill

The Senate on Thursday night passed a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown after a days-long fight over President Biden’s vaccine mandate threw the legislation into limbo.

Senators voted 69-28 to pass a stopgap bill to fund the government through Feb. 18. The legislation, which passed the House earlier in the evening, now goes to Biden’s desk where he has until the end of Friday to sign it.

The quick votes are a U-turn from Thursday morning, when the path to avert a shutdown was far from clear. Leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees announced a stop-gap deal, but hurdles remained in the Senate amid a standoff with a group of conservatives.

Those lawmakers wanted to use the short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, to defund Biden’s vaccine mandate for larger businesses, federal employees and contractors, and the military. But the effort sparked quick Democratic backlash, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hammering Republicans as "anti-vaccination."

Even as Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) predicted that the government wouldn’t shut down, senators were locked in a war of words. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned that Republicans would bear the blame for a “Republican anti-vaccine shutdown,” while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) — one of the senators pushing to defund the vaccine mandate — fired back, saying that a shutdown was “up to Senator Schumer.” 

The path to an offramp slowly emerged on Thursday.