WASHINGTON — The House passed a short-term measure Tuesday to fund the federal government into early December, a move designed to avoid a chaotic shutdown as lawmakers campaign for reelection.
Lawmakers needed to act before the fiscal year concludes at the end of September to avoid a funding lapse. They were determined not to bump up against that deadline during the campaign season following this past year’s historic shutdowns.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 370-48. The Senate has already overwhelmingly approved the measure, so it now moves to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
“It gives the nation and our constituents certainty, certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our service members will be paid,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
A record 43-day shutdown occurred last fall when the two parties disagreed on renewing an expiring tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Then came the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which lasted 76 days before lawmakers agreed to fund much of the department but not its immigration enforcement operations.
Lawmakers were wary of a repeat before voters go to the polls. They also blamed the other party for the recent impasses.
“We’re going to avoid the threat of another Democratic shutdown,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters in advance of the vote.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, encouraged her Democratic colleagues to vote for the measure during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning.
She said the bill was much improved from the product that passed the House earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis. For example, she said it prevents the Department of Homeland Security from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, and it delays a proposed rule that would give political appointees in the Trump administration more authority to stop federal grants from going out for programs they view as not in line with the president’s agenda. Those changes were made when the Senate approved its version of the bill.
Democrats fear the administration will use the proposed regulation on grants to steer money away from Democratic-led states. DeLauro called the delay an important first step, but said more must be done to block the policy from taking effect.
“Whether a community receives disaster relief should not depend on who they voted for in the last election,” DeLauro said.
The short-term measure funds federal agencies generally at current levels through Dec. 11. It will give lawmakers more time to find compromise on a full-year measure, though that will likely be quite difficult.
Republicans are seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the military while cutting most non-defense programs. Democrats say that’s a non-starter and insist on a bipartisan approach that treats domestic programs with parity.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over imposing what they contend are “unlawful” conditions on federal grants intended to help states prepare and respond to disasters.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday, argues that the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency have been using their control over billions of dollars in federal grants to operate what the attorneys general see as an aggressive “campaign of coercion” to adopt the Trump administration’s preferred voting and immigration policies, according to the complaint.
“Congress never gave DHS or FEMA authority to rewrite state election law, require cooperation with federal immigration agents, or terminate federal funding streams at any time and for any reason,” the lawsuit stated. The legal action was filed by a coalition of 24 attorneys general and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, both Democrats.
A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
At the crux of their legal complaint are two federal programs: the Homeland Security Grant Program, which was established by Congress as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, which helps states pay for emergency management staff who plan for and respond to natural disasters and mass casualty events, as well as software programs used by state emergency operations centers.
For the homeland security grant, the Trump administration has attached “radical” new terms based on Trump’s preferred policies, the states contend.
These terms include verifying the citizenship of all individuals in state voter databases, transitioning their voting systems to equipment that reads hand-marked paper ballots and conducting post-election audits “according to nonexistent guidelines to be set by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” according to the complaint.
And the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have threatened to make states “promise to devote their scarce resources to the federal government’s own task of civil immigration enforcement” in order to receive both the homeland security and the emergency management grants, according to the complaint.
At a news conference Thursday, Bonta laid out the stakes.
“These grants help communities prepare for emergencies before disaster strikes,” he said. “They support emergency management personnel, strengthen disaster response capabilities, improve coordination among first responders, and help protect our residents when they need government the most.”
The Trump administration restrictions would mean “our communities would have fewer resources to prepare for wildfires, earthquakes, floods, terrorist threats, and other emergencies,” Bonta stated.
“Time after time, courts have told Trump’s corrupt administration that it can’t coerce California into doing its bidding by threatening to withhold public safety funding,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Yet, they’re coming back for more. This time they’re demanding states rewrite their own election laws to access money that pays for public safety readiness and response, and that Congress already approved. We simply won’t allow it.”
The just-approved state budget strips authority from the elected state superintendent of public instruction, transferring power in January to an appointee of the governor, dramatically changing the oversight and management of a public school system serving more than 6 million students from preschool through 12th grade.
The change was pushed through by Gov. Gavin Newsom at the urging of academics and education reformers who have long criticized how the state’s $149 billion public education system is governed.
In essence, the change consolidates increased power within the governor’s office — streamlining and largely replacing a diffuse system in which the state superintendent has significant influence, but no direct control over budget and policy.
Supporters hail the move as bringing accountability and coherence — through the governor — to all the departments and agenices involved in education.
“The approval of education governance reform, over a century in the making, is a monumental victory for California’s students that finally establishes a sensible system to best support them,” said Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, an Oakland-based research and advocacy organization. “We commend Governor Newsom for his leadership in making this much needed change a reality.”
Critics called the change an unjustified, undemocratic side-stepping of the state constitution and the will of voters.
“California’s constitutional architecture deliberately established an independent schools chief to ensure that public education answers directly to the voters,” wrote a labor coalition that included the two largest statewide teacher unions. “Replacing an elected constitutional officer with a partisan bureaucrat serving strictly at the pleasure of the executive branch breaks that model, permanently muting the public voice when democratic transparency matters most.”
The critics noted that voters have defeated every attempt to eliminate the elected state superintendent.
The latest effort bypasses the ballot box by keeping the elected position, but stripping most of its powers. The bill did not go through the typically lengthy legislative process; it was instead folded as a trailer bill into the state budget.
School district management groups, such as the one representing county superintendents, were more supportive of the changes.
The Legislature passes laws related to education. The governor chooses which to sign. The governor also proposes what to pay for in education through his budget plan. The Legislature can amend the plan and has the responsibility to approve it.
The elected state superintendent runs the state Department of Education and serves as the administrative lead for the state Board of Education, whose members have been appointed by the governor to four-year terms. The superintendent does not have a vote on the board and must follow board authority in some areas but not others.
The board approves state education policy and curriculum.
“The current state system of support and accountability for local districts is uneven,” resulting in “islands of high quality surrounded by deserts where nothing much has improved,” said former State Board of Education President Michael Kirst, an emeritus Stanford professor of education. Instruction across the entire state was “unlikely to improve” under the status quo, he said.
How the office will change
All of the state superintendent’s authority will transfer to the education commissioner, who will be named by the governor and then approved by the state Senate.
That means the next governor will gain direct control or control through appointees over developing and spending the education budget — including state and federal grants — and developing education policies.
Under the old system, the state superintendent has overseen grants while also interpreting state education law and making sure schools complied.
The new law sets out the superintendent’s role instead as the “independently elected nonpartisan voice for the public interest in the governance of the state’s educational systems.” This role includes reporting to the Legislature “on the condition of education based on statewide engagement and travel to identify significant trends, challenges, and emerging issues.”
Critics worry that amounts to a whole lot of nothing.
That may be literally the case initially, as the new law gives governor’s new education commissioner until Oct. 1, 2027 to propose further reforms including “the future role and staffing” of the elected superintendent.
Until then, the new law provides for the superintendent to have several deputies and a skeleton clerical staff.
The superintendent also becomes one of 11 members of the state Board of Education and one of 19 members of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.
Change opposed by candidates for the office
The overhaul occurs as two candidates vie to become the elected superintendent in November. Both have strongly opposed the change.
The race pits Republican Sonja Shaw, who finished first in the primary, against Democrat Richard Barrera.
Shaw, who decried the change as a “blatant power grab” that “silences voters,” said she had a game plan for how she intended to use the previous powers of the office if elected.
Sonja Shaw candidate for state superintendent
(Photo courtesy of Sonja Shaw)
“An outsider serving as state superintendent who refuses to simply defer to Sacramento could use the office’s authority over grants, contracts, federal programs, accountability systems, fiscal standards, parent resources, and administrative functions to prioritize results over ideology,” Shaw said.
“In practice, that could mean focusing resources on proven reading and math instruction, increasing transparency, fostering increased parental involvement, protecting fairness and safety for girls in sports,” she said.
If elected, Barrera said he hopes to work immediately to fill in the blanks with a meaningful role for the superintendent and to bring in important education voices that he said have been left out so far.
Richard Barrera, a candidate for state schools superintendent
(Sam Hodgson/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“The whole purpose of this restructuring is bringing people into alignment, with the focus on goals for student learning, and I’d say we have a long way to go,” Barrera said.
Both candidates said there was potential grounds for a legal challenge to the rewritten duties.
California Teachers Assn. President David Goldberg also was among the opposing voices.
“There’s always tons of issues going on for a governor, and education issues are likely to be put on the back burner.” State voters, he added, “have really wanted an independent voice around public education,” someone willing at times to stand up to the governor.
Supporters of the change counter that the governor — who has to answer to a broad base of interests — would be less susceptible to education special-interest groups, including teacher unions.
The central tenets of the new framework are based on a December 2025 report from Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonpartisan center that brings together researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis and USC.
