Bipartisan congressional leadership reached a deal to keep the government funded for the near future.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other key negotiators released a statement Wednesday afternoon describing the deal. The lawmakers reached an agreement on six appropriations bills that legislators will vote on by March 8, with the remaining six to be finalized and receive a vote by March 22.

“We are in agreement that Congress must work in a bipartisan manner to fund our government,” the negotiators said in a joint statement. The first round of appropriations bills “will adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility Act discretionary spending limits and January’s topline spending agreement.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, along with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins, were also involved in the negotiations and credited in the joint statement.

The bills in the first round include Agriculture-Food and Drug Administration, Commerce-Justice and Science, Energy and Water Development, Interior, Military Construction-Veterans’ Affairs and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, the negotiators announced. The March 22 set of appropriations bills include Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-Health and Human Services, Legislative Branch and State and Foreign Operations.

Congress has struggled for months to pass the full suite of appropriations bills in a saga that stretches back to Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the speakership in early October 2023.

Nick Pope on February 28, 2024