The U.S. House of Representatives passed the 2023 federal budget, hours before the current stopgap bill was set to expire.
The bill passed 225-201 with one present and four no votes, mostly down party lines, with nine Republicans crossing the aisle and voting to support the bill.
President Joe Biden is expected to sign the plan.
The House got the spending plan after the Senate on Thursday — 68-29 — approved the $1.7 trillion funding package, The Washington Post reported.
The bill will fund the government until the end of September.
Senate Democrats increased military and defense spending to $858 billion outspending domestic initiatives’ $772 billion.
But the bill was quickly moved through the Senate — three days from introduction to passage — as the final time-sensitive legislation of the 117th Congress and before Democratic control of the House goes to the Republicans.
Sen. Richard Shelby, (R-Ala.) gave his final remarks on the bill as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, saying, “We know it’s not perfect but it’s got a lot of stuff in it, a lot of good stuff.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.) presided over the vote and said in a statement it was “a bill that invests in us — the American people.”
Both Leahy and Shelby are leaving the Senate and both sent earmarks to their home states with Alabama getting $762 million in earmarks, also known as community project funding, while Leahy secured $212 million, the Post reported.
In addition to the earmarks, the spending plan also changes the 135-year-old law that former President Donald Trump and his supporters tried to use to keep former Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the 2020 election, The Associated Press reported.
The Electoral Count Act was changed by a bipartisan effort among 15 senators making the role of the Vice President a ceremonial function not an actual formal role of the office.
The 1887 law was considered vague and vulnerable to abuse, the AP reported.
Trump had tried to persuade Pence to reject electoral votes leading to the events of Jan. 6. There also has to be a call of one-fifth of both the House and Senate to object to a state’s vote. In the past only one Senate or House member had to object, the Post reported.
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