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The FY2027 stopgap becomes law on the Senate's vehicle

2 September 2026

The House of Representatives agreed to the Senate amendments to H.R. 6500 at 2:03 p.m. on 1 September 2026 by 370 to 48, on a motion to suspend the rules and concur, and the President signed the bill on 2 September.12 The White House states that the act “provides fiscal year 2027 appropriations to Federal agencies through December 11, 2026, for continuing projects and activities of the Federal Government, and extends authorities for a broad range of programs including surface transportation and veteran programs.”2 The Senate had passed the bill 90-6 on 8 August after striking an African trade bill to the enacting clause and inserting the stopgap in its place (see Senate passes the FY2027 stopgap 90-6 by emptying an African trade bill).34 No Public Law number has been assigned in the Government Publishing Office’s collection, which runs to Public Law 119-102 of 12 July.5

  1. Suspension of the rules set the bar the vote had to clear, and it was not a low one. The Clerk records the vote type as “2/3 YEA-AND-NAY,” so the motion needed two-thirds of those voting rather than a simple majority; 418 members voted, which put the threshold at 279, and 370 voted yes.1 A simple-majority vote would have needed 210.

  2. Both parties supplied the margin and both supplied the opposition. Republicans voted 193 to 19 in favour, Democrats 176 to 29, and the one independent in favour; 14 members did not vote.1 The 48 votes against were majority Democratic in a chamber the Republicans control, so the coalition ran across the aisle in both directions.1

  3. The House ended by passing the Senate’s bill rather than its own. Its stopgap, H.R. 9770, ran to 4 December and had passed 220-205 on 21 July; the chamber never returned to it. It rose after Roll Call 283 on 23 July, came back on 31 August, and disposed of the Senate amendments on its third recorded vote after the break.416 The margin moved from 220-205 on the House’s own text to 370-48 on the Senate’s.41

  4. The Clerk’s record still describes the bill by what it used to be. The vote on 1 September is filed under the legislative description “AGOA Extension Act,” the title H.R. 6500 carried in January as a measure extending African Growth and Opportunity Act duty-free treatment, which the Senate amendment replaced along with the rest of the text.14

Footnotes

  1. U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Clerk, Roll Call 286, 119th Congress, 2nd Session, 1 September 2026, 2:03 p.m. Question: “On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Concur in the Senate Amendments”; vote type “2/3 YEA-AND-NAY”; result “Passed”; legislative description “AGOA Extension Act.” Totals: 370 yea, 48 nay, 0 present, 14 not voting. By party: Republican 193-19 with 6 not voting; Democratic 176-29 with 8 not voting; Independent 1-0. The two-thirds figure of 279 is arithmetic from the 418 members recorded voting. https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2026/roll286.xml ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  2. The White House, “Congressional Bill H.R. 6500 Signed into Law,” 2 September 2026. The Government Publishing Office published the enrolled bill, BILLS-119hr6500enr, “An Act Making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2027, and for other purposes,” 24 pages, with a date stamp of 3 September 2026 and a last-modified time of 02:41 UTC that day — 22:41 eastern on 2 September. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/09/congressional-bill-h-r-6500-signed-into-law/ ↩ ↩2

  3. U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote 228, 119th Congress, 2nd Session, 8 August 2026: “On Passage of the Bill: H.R. 6500, as amended; An act making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2027, and for other purposes,” passed 90-6. Retrieved from the Senate roll-call menu, which is reachable in a browser but not by command-line fetch. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_119_2.htm ↩

  4. The Senate passed H.R. 6500 on 8 August 2026 by 90-6 after striking everything after the enacting clause of a January bill extending African Growth and Opportunity Act duty-free treatment and customs user fees, inserting the “Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027” — a four-division package running to 11 December 2026 — and amending the bill’s title to match. The House’s own stopgap, H.R. 9770, ran to 4 December and passed 220-205 on 21 July 2026. See Senate passes the FY2027 stopgap 90-6 by emptying an African trade bill. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Government Publishing Office, Public and Private Laws collection for the 119th Congress. The most recent public law in the collection when checked on 7 September 2026 is Public Law 119-102, “Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act of 2025,” dated 12 July 2026. Publication of slip laws lags enactment by weeks, so the absence of a number is not evidence that the bill was not enacted. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/plaw/ ↩

  6. U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call 283, 23 July 2026, on H.R. 8884, the Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act — the last recorded House vote before the summer break. The House resumed voting on 31 August 2026 with Roll Calls 284 and 285, both on suspension motions, and took up the Senate amendments to H.R. 6500 as Roll Call 286 the following day. https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2026/roll283.xml ↩

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