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 After a chaotic day that featured an embarrassing rebuke to
Republican House Speaker John Boehner from angry conservatives, the
House voted 357-60 to keep the lights on at the Department of
Homeland Security for at least one more week.
The Senate had already passed the one-week extension a few hours
earlier. President Barack Obama was expected to quickly sign it.
The dizzying twists and turns in the days-long political battle
raised fresh questions about Boehner's ability to manage his caucus
of restive conservatives and the prospects for legislative
achievement in the new, Republican-run Congress.
Earlier on Friday, the House rejected a three-week funding extension
for the agency when conservatives rebelled because the bill did not
block Obama's executive orders on immigration. On a second try late
in the evening, House Democrats provided the votes to pass a
one-week extension.
 Democrats said they were optimistic a bill with nearly $40 billion
in department funding for the full fiscal year, already passed by
the Senate, would advance in the House next week.
In urging her fellow House Democrats to support the one-week
extension, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to
members: "Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full
funding next week."
The extension will give both chambers of Congress more time to work
out their differences on funding for the super-agency that
spearheads domestic counterterrorism efforts.
Boehner could risk another round of challenges from conservatives if
he puts up for a House vote the Senate's "clean" funding bill
without the immigration restrictions.
The political battle was triggered by House Republican efforts to
use the Homeland Security spending bill to block funding for Obama's
executive orders that lifted the threat of deportation for millions
of undocumented residents.
If Homeland Security's funding had not been extended by midnight,
spending authority would have been cut off for the agency that
secures U.S. borders, airports and coastal waters. The agency would
have been forced to furlough about 30,000 employees, or about 15
percent of its workforce.
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Nearly 200,000 workers, including airport and border security agents
and Coast Guard personnel would have stayed on the job but would not
have been paid until new funding was approved.
Created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the department
encompasses the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Transportation
Security Administration and immigration, customs and emergency
management authorities.
The agency had begun tentative preparations for a shutdown before
getting the late-night reprieve from the House. Obama had convened a
Friday night meeting at the White House with security and budget
officials to discuss the ramifications of a shutdown.
Many conservative Republicans had demanded that any spending bill
include provisions to restrict funding for Obama's immigration
orders.
Representative John Fleming of Louisiana, a Tea Party favorite who
voted against the stopgap bill, criticized Boehner for not pushing
harder to kill Obama's executive order. Asked if House leadership
should change, he said: "Obviously, we're not getting good results."
(Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Grant
McCool, Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)
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