The House Friday defeated three-week extension of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, leaving it poised for closure at midnight.
The vote was 203-224 and failed thanks to universal opposition from Democrats and dozens of conservative Republicans.
Republican leaders said Congress will remain in session tonight and perhaps into the weekend in an effort to pass a funding bill.
The measure had been poised for fast approval in the Senate where and a signature from President Obama.
Friday’s congressional action marks the failed end of weeks of spending gridlock.
The legislation would have kept the department funded until March 19, all but guaranteeing another round of partisan wrangling in the weeks ahead.
House Republicans insisted on the short-term measure because they hoped to buy more time to negotiate with the Senate, which earlier Friday passed a $40 billion Homeland measure that lasts until Sept. 30, which is the end of the fiscal year.
Republicans want language inserted in the long-term bill that would curb President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The Homeland bill once included such provisions but Senate Republicans stripped them out to get Democrats to stop blocking the spending bill in the Senate.
The House was poised to pass a provision to hold a conference with the Senate on the long-term bill, although Senate Democrats have pledged to block such a move in the upper chamber.
Republicans Friday were up against a difficult deadline. Homeland Security funding is scheduled to run out at the end of the day and GOP leaders were eager to avoid the political repercussions of a partial government closure that would have meant no paychecks for essential employees, including airport screeners and border patrol agents.
But they could not convince their faction of conservative Republicans to go along with the plan. Many of them told the Washington Examiner they could not support any further funding of the department without language curbing Obama’s executive actions.
Democrats offered an amendment to extend funding until the end of the year. They argued that a three-week deal only extends the struggle to secure department funding, which they said the GOP is holding hostage to win immigration concessions from Obama.
“What is gained by further putting off a resolution to this crisis of the Republicans’ own making?” Rep. Lucille Roybal Allard, of California, who is the top Democrat on the panel that funds Homeland Security.
Democrats argued that a short-term bill prohibits the department from spending critical grant money that would be used to enhance both border and interior security.
