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How often has the Senate passed short-term CRs to avoid a government shutdown in 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023?
Executive Summary
The source summaries provided contradict and omit key details: one source asserts the Senate passed two short-term continuing resolutions in 2013 [1], while others discuss broader patterns of CR use without giving definitive counts for 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, or 2023 (p1_s2, [2], [3], [13], [11], [5]–p3_s3). No single provided source supplies a clear, year-by-year count of short-term Senate-passed CRs for all five years in question; the materials contain partial, sometimes conflicting claims and general statistics about CR frequency.
1. What the 2013 claim actually says—and what’s missing
One provided analysis states the Senate passed two short-term CRs in 2013, naming H.J.Res. 117 (through March 27, 2013) and H.R. 933 (funding the remainder of FY2013) as the measures involved [1]. That summary frames the situation as a sequence: a temporary extension followed by a consolidated appropriations act. The source gives specific bill identifiers and dates for 2013, but it does not explicitly state the Senate vote counts or whether those measures originated in or were amended by the Senate; it simply records enactments. Other supplied texts discuss House or committee activity in 2013 without confirming how many short-term CR votes the Senate took, so the assertion that the Senate “passed two short-term CRs” rests primarily on that single interpretation [2].
2. Contradictions on shutdowns and CRs in 2018–2019
The supplied summaries diverge over 2018 and 2019. One source reports that no CR was approved in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 and that those gaps produced shutdowns [3]. Another summary references multiple 2018 CRs by name—the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018, and extensions later in the year—without enumerating Senate votes [4]. These statements conflict because one frames 2018–2019 as shutdown years without CR approvals, while another documents CR activity in 2018. The material does not reconcile whether the Senate passed short-term CRs that were subsequently overridden, whether CRs were House or Senate-originated, or whether extensions were enacted in joint action.
3. General statistics point to heavy CR reliance but not year-specific counts
Several summaries emphasize long-term reliance on CRs—e.g., 47 CRs between FY2010–FY2022 or 138 CRs from FY1998–FY2025—demonstrating frequent temporary funding measures across decades [3] [5]. These aggregate statistics confirm that Congress often resorts to CRs and that multiple CRs can occur within a single fiscal year. However, aggregate totals do not specify how many short-term CRs the Senate passed in each of the requested years [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. The available summaries therefore support the general pattern—frequent CR use—but cannot substitute for discrete year-by-year vote counts or bill histories.
4. 2021 and 2023: partial references without clear counts
The materials offer fragmentary references to 2021 and 2023 actions—mentioning CRs in the runup to FY2023 and a bipartisan CR draft in 2023 tied to Appropriations Committee chairs [11] [4]. These summaries indicate Senate involvement in short-term measures around those fiscal years but stop short of enumerating how many short-term CRs the Senate passed in 2021 or 2023. The texts also do not consistently distinguish between short-term “stopgap” CRs versus larger omnibus or consolidated appropriations acts that removed the need for additional CRs in the same year, leaving the specific counts indeterminate.
5. Why the provided sources can’t deliver a definitive year-by-year tally
The supplied analyses mix legislative summaries, committee reports, and aggregate CR totals without consistently tracing each CR through House and Senate passage records [12] [2] [13] [14]. They sometimes attribute CR enactment to “passage” or “signing” but do not standardize whether a short-term CR is being counted only if the Senate cast a separate affirmative vote, or if a House-origin CR became law after Senate consideration. That methodological ambiguity and inconsistent scope across summaries prevents a definitive count for 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023 based solely on the provided sources.
6. Clear next steps to resolve the question with authoritative records
To produce a precise, year-by-year count of short-term CRs the Senate passed in 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2023, consult official legislative histories: Congress.gov roll-call and bill status pages, the Congressional Record for Senate passage votes, and Library of Congress bill summaries for each cited fiscal year. The current set of summaries offers useful context—CRs are common and the years named saw stopgap measures or shutdowns—but they lack consistent, comparable vote-level data [1] [3] [5]. Using primary legislative records will eliminate the ambiguities present in these secondary summaries and yield an authoritative count.