The bill, which would allow the city to continue operating under its 2025 budget, still needs to be approved by the House to go into effect.
By Meagan Flynn and Jenny Gathright, WAPO, March 14, 2025
The Senate passed a stand-alone bill Friday that would allow the District to continue with its 2025 budget without interruption after House Republican lawmakers had passed a spending bill that effectively canceled it — a stunning turnaround after D.C. officials and hundreds of residents pleaded with federal lawmakers to reverse course on the anticipated $1 billion in cuts to municipal services.
Thestand-alone bill — led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland)— must go back to the House for approval, and it is unclear whether Republicans there will support it. But Collins said on the Senate floor that both President Donald Trump and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, endorsed her bill — key support that could boost its chances of passage in the House.
On the floor, Collins said the omission of a routine provision from the House GOP spending bill — forcing D.C. to revert to 2024 spending levels in the middle of the fiscal year — was a “true inequity” needing correction.
“Reducing D.C.’s local funding expenditures will not result in a dollar of federal savings,” Collins said.
“If they’re having to make the budget with $1 billion less,” Van Hollen added before the vote, “it will mean less police forces, less firefighters, and less money for schools.”
The bill passed by a voice vote. Not a single nay could be heard, leading to applause from some lawmakers in the chamber.
Passage of the bill came after intense lobbying by D.C. officials and hundreds of city residents, who throughout the week descended on senators’ offices over the cuts. The proposal, which effectively canceled the city’s $21 billion budget in the middle of the year — whisked through Congress in a flash without notice to D.C. officials — ignited one of the most dramatic battles in the city’s 50-year home rule history.
Although the city is awaiting House action on the bill, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) thanked Collins, Van Hollen, the regional congressional delegation and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) for working to push it through — and the hundreds of D.C. residents for making their voices heard.
“Senate approval today is a major first step as we continue working with the House of Representatives on final passage to ensure critical services provided in the Nation’s Capital, including our police officers, firefighters, teachers, medical services and hospital network, aren’t haphazardly cut in the middle of the fiscal year,” Bowser said in a statement. “DC is proud of our strong financial management, balanced budgets, and strong bond ratings.”
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said while he was hopeful that the stand-alone bill would solve the District’s problem, the situation cannot be resolved until the House returns to business March 24. “And even then, there are risks,” he said in a news release Friday evening.
If the bill does not pass the House, D.C. must still contend with the anticipated $1 billion-plus in cuts, which officials have warned could impact every corner of D.C. government and could lead to layoffs of crucial city workers ranging from police to teachers.
Spokespeople for Cole, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday evening.
The anticipated hit to D.C.’s budget is part of the GOP continuing resolution that, moments before thestand-alone D.C. vote, the Senate passed to avert a government shutdown. The spending bill will head to Trump’s desk, without language to address the city’s issue. Natalie Wilson, spokeswoman for D.C.’s chief financial officer, said city officials won’t begin to enact the immediate cuts they feared before knowing the fate of the stand-alone bill. “There is no need to take immediate action. However, we are prepared to work with the Mayor and Council to take the necessary steps if the final bill is not approved,” Wilson said in a text message Friday night.
The problem for the District ignited after House Republicans released a spending bill over the weekend that omitted a routine, long-standing provision that would allow the city to continue spending its active local budget. Without it, D.C. would instead be forced to revert to its 2024 spending plan halfway through the fiscal year — despite the fact that Congress had already green-lit its 2025 budget last year.
House Republican leadership offered little explanation for the decision to essentially revoke thecity’s $21 billion active budget, other than a desire to treat the District as a federal agency.
Top D.C. officials stood united on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol earlier this week to warn that reverting to last year’s spending levels halfway through the year would require them to cut 16 percent of the remaining local budget essentially overnight.
“The District,” Bowser said on Tuesday, “is not a federal agency. We have an approved budget. … And we have been operating on that budget for more than six months.”
Bowser and City Administrator Kevin Donahue said that, because of the magnitude of a 16 percent cut this late in the fiscal year, the city would not be able to avoid some of its larger spending areas: public safety, education and human services.
Residents conveyed D.C.’s predicament to every office, multiple times over.
Pascale Steverlynck, 27, stood in the office of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and began to cry as she explained the local budget situation to a staffer.
“There are children who live here,” she said. “People rely on so many services.”
When Greg Upwall and his six-year-old son Bruno walked into the office of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), a staffer seated at the front desk was familiar with their pitch.
“We’ve had lots of people from D.C. come in the past few days,” said the staffer.
“That’s because this is our city,” Upwall replied.
D.C.’s allies in Maryland and Virginia also pushed to find fixes for D.C. and expressed outrage over the impact on the city, where thousands of their residents visit and work as well.
“In 2026, when we’re going to celebrate 250 years, we want to show off D.C. and the whole region,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) said. “If we allowed this mistake to take place, D.C. will lay off cops, it will close schools, it will shut down on trash removal and for those of us in the region use Metro, drastic cuts. Let’s correct this mistake.”
“The shortfall would be not only devastating to the District of Columbia, but like everything else, it’s devastating to the people that it serves,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland). “And in this case it’s not just the people of the District of Columbia. We share a border with the District of Columbia, so we’ll also see cuts to public safety.”
D.C. residents wanted federal lawmakers to amend the spending bill to fix what Bowser had called a “$1.1 billion problem” before it passed either chamber, and were incensed that lawmakers did not do so.
The stakes became more challenging for federal lawmakers as the nation inched closer to a government shutdown. Even if senators agreed to address D.C.’s problem within the spending bill, any amendment would have to go back through the House as well. But with the House out on recess and many representatives out of town, senators were not willing to risk a shutdown waiting for them to return to reconsider the bill.
Some D.C. residents and advocates watched live as the Senate passed the bill. While they were somewhat buoyed, they still felt uncertain. It had to pass the House — and they were unclear about when it would actually go into effect if passed.
Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free DC, which advocates for D.C. home rule, said the whole experience reminded her how beholden D.C. is to Congress and its whims. “We shouldn’t have to depend on a special fix to be able to run schools and basic services,” she said.
But, she said, the turnout of D.C. residents showed her something important.
“We saw this week that people really care about D.C.,” she said. “That’s so precious and beautiful.”
Jacob Bogage, Marianna Sotomayor and Isaac Arnsdorf contributed to this report.
