The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday to pass a controversial budget bill that will end the partial shutdown of the federal government.
Last week, Senate Democrats pushed to remove a more than $10 billion appropriation for Immigration and Customs Enforcement from a more than $1 trillion budget bill, ending a week-long deadlock over the measure, although too late to prevent a partial government shutdown over the weekend.
On Tuesday, the House voted to approve the Senate’s amendments to the bill, forwarding the bill to the desk of President Donald Trump, upon whose signature the shutdown will end.
Hawai‘i Rep. Ed Case was one of 21 House Democrats to vote in support of the bill Tuesday; the final vote tally came to 217-214, with 193 Democrats and 21 Republicans voting against the measure. Hawai‘i's other Representative, Jill Tokuda, voted against the bill.
Case spoke before the House Tuesday urging the bill’s passage, saying that “70% of our federal government” depends on the bill’s funding.
“We have kept our Defense Department essentially crippled for 16 months now, as the last time we funded it … was fiscal year 2024,” Case said. “They’ve been operating on a continuing resolution for 16 months now and that cripples national security. That is a national security risk.”
The bill will also continue to pay the salaries of some 20,000 Hawai‘i federal employees.
With the excision of the bill’s for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, the measure now only provides short-term funds for DHS through Feb. 13. Democrats, including Case, have said they will push for ICE reforms over the next two weeks.
“ICE must be reformed, and until it is, neither it nor its parent entity, the Department of Homeland Security, should be fully funded,” Case said. “This measure does exactly that. It gives this administration and my majority colleagues ten days to work with us all to do the right thing.”
Meanwhile, the House on Monday voted through six other measures, largely related to veterans’ affairs. These bills include:
• The VETS Opportunity Act, which extends several veteran benefits — for example, it allows veterans’ educational assistance benefits to be used for independent study courses offered by any institution participating in the Department of Education’s financial assistance program. The bill passed with no recorded objections.
• The Ernest Peltz Accrued Veterans Benefits Act, which establishes a process for the Department of Veterans Affairs to issue pensions to next-of-kin following the veteran’s death. The bill was named after WWII veteran Ernest Peltz, whose VA pension was erroneously not paid to him until after his death. The bill passed 405-1; the lone dissident was Texas Democrat Lizzie Fletcher.
• The Veterans Readiness and Employment Improvement Act, requiring that VA-provided counseling on university campuses be conducted by VA employees. This was slightly less overwhelmingly popular, passing 404-2; Fletcher and Texas Republican Keith Self voted against it.
• The Medal of Sacrifice Act, which establishes a presidential award for law enforcement officers and first responders killed in the line of duty. The bill passed with no objections.
• An unnamed bill that establishes eligibility requirements for a person to be a marriage and family therapist for the Veterans Health Administration. Under the bill, such therapists must have a master’s degree and be authorized to provide clinical supervision. The bill passed with no objections.
• Another unnamed bill moving the headquarters of the National Woman’s Relief Corps — a charitable organization that began life as the women’s auxiliary for the Union during the Civil War — from Washington, D.C. to Murphysboro, Illinois. Passed with no objections.
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