The House approved a continuing resolution on Tuesday that extends the spending levels of a lame duck legislative session in December last year by Democratic House Majorities and Senate Majorities until 2024.

The final score was 336 to 95. The measure was supported by a whopping 209 Democrats, far more than its 127 Republican supporters.

The two-tiered continuing Resolution (CR), also known as a laddered resolution, extends the current spending levels of Agriculture, Energy and Water, Military Construction – VA and Transportation – HUD through January 19. The remaining eight bills are extended through February 2.

These spending levels and policies had been set by Democrats during the lame-duck session in December 2022, after Republicans gained a majority in the House but before new members took office officially in January.

The bill is supported by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. It should pass the Senate and reach President Biden before the deadline of Friday at midnight.

Schumer said Monday that he was “pleased with” Speaker Johnson’s decision not to pursue any spending cuts or change to Biden Administration policy in the spending package. He called the bill “a measure of responsibility.”

The bill passed by suspension of House Rules, which required two-thirds approval for passage. Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA) chose this route as he did not have enough Republican support to pass the legislation under regular order.

A simple majority is all that’s needed to pass a bill or a rule through regular order. House Democrats, however, had stated that they would not bail out Johnson to allow the rule’s passing despite supporting the laddered CR.

Conservatives are worried that punting on the fight will give leverage to moderate Republican Senators, like Lindsay Graham (R – SC), who was the author of the Gang of Eight amnesty law in 2013. Graham is now seeking a border compromise that would provide political cover for Republicans to vote to approve a White House request for billions of dollars of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

It is estimated that the foreign aid component of the supplemental, which is not offset but is added to previously approved expenditure, could be as high as $100 billion.

Conservatives argue that giving billions of dollars more to the Biden Administration to continue its current border policy would exacerbate the border crises by enabling the administration to process and house more migrants more quickly, thus serving as an additional magnet for migration.

Conservatives insist that border policy changes must be substantive to win their support. They point to the H.R. The standard for the negotiations is H.R.