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 The Senate kicked off the effort by advancing a measure to extend
all previous agency funding levels until Dec. 11, in a bipartisan
77-19 procedural vote.
That clears the way for the Senate to pass the spending bill by
early Wednesday, sending it to the House of Representatives for
passage just in time to beat a midnight Wednesday deadline.
The stop-gap spending measure is aimed at buying time for
negotiators to reach a longer-term budget agreement that lasts
through September 2016.
Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who declared his
candidacy on Monday to succeed House Speaker John Boehner, vowed to
avoid another shutdown threat in December when the stop-gap funding
ends and a federal debt ceiling limit is needed.
 "We've got to stop these," McCarthy told Fox News when asked if
there would be a December funding crisis. "We need to join together,
not just in our ideas but in a media plan. So those in America need
to join with us. If we are to be successful, we need to be able to
fight and win."
Boehner is leaving at the end of October after facing repeated
ouster threats from hard-line conservatives who demanded that
Congress use the spending extension to cut off federal funds for
Planned Parenthood to punish the women's health care group over
allegations it sold fetal tissue harvested from abortions. The
group, which gets around $550 million annually from the government,
has denied any wrongdoing.
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Faced with a veto threat from Obama and mixed support among
Republicans for a strategy that would likely lead to a shutdown,
Boehner said on Sunday the House would pass a funding bill without
the Planned Parenthood provisions.
But Boehner's successor will likely face similar demands from
hard-line conservatives over the December deadlines.
Senator Ted Cruz on Monday made a last-ditch effort to try to stop
the funding measure and restore the Planned Parenthood provisions.
The Republican presidential candidate slammed Republicans leaders
for "surrendering" to Obama and Democrats over the issue.
Obama "simply has to utter the word shutdown and Republican
leadership runs to the hills," Cruz said.
(Additional reporting by Peter Cooney; Editing by Nick Zieminski,
Bernard Orr)
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