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Did Congress pass any continuing resolutions before the 2025 shutdown and which ones?
Executive Summary
Congress enacted a major full-year continuing appropriations measure, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (Public Law 119-4), in mid-March 2025, but later efforts to pass stopgap continuing resolutions in September 2025 failed and coincided with the government shutdown. Sources agree that lawmakers passed at least one broad continuing appropriations law earlier in the year but did not enact the September CRs that might have averted the shutdown [1] [2] [3].
1. What Congress actually passed in spring — a full-year stopgap that reset the calendar
Congress passed and the President signed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, which became Public Law No. 119-4 in March 2025. This law provided continuing appropriations and multiple targeted extensions for programs through the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and included funding actions across defense, homeland security, health programs, and special extensions for community health centers and certain Medicare/Medicaid authorities [1] [2]. Legislative records show H.R. 1968 moving through the House on March 11 and the Senate on March 14, 2025, establishing that Congress did act in March to place many accounts on a full-year footing, not merely a short stopgap [2]. The statute’s text and enactment dates confirm this was a central appropriations vehicle early in 2025 [1].
2. December 2024 and March 2025 stopgaps — layering stopgaps and then a full-year act
Multiple accounts indicate Congress relied on more than one instrument to fund government operations entering 2025. A December 2024 continuing resolution extended funding into March 14, 2025, and the March legislation then took further steps to extend or set funding through the fiscal year. That sequence — a December CR followed by a March full-year appropriations and extensions act — shows Congress used layered continuing measures early in the year rather than leaving all decisions to later negotiations [4] [2]. The March measure’s passage closed many near-term gaps but did not eliminate the need for FY2026 appropriations work later in the year [2].
3. September 2025 proposals failed — House passed a CR, Senate rejected competing CRs
In contrast to March’s enacted law, efforts in September 2025 to pass new continuing resolutions to cover the next fiscal period failed. The Republican-sponsored CR H.R.5371 passed the House on September 19, 2025, but the Senate repeatedly rejected it, failing cloture on key votes; a Democratic alternative S.2882 also failed. Both September CRs were not enacted into law, and their rejection in the Senate preceded the shutdown, demonstrating that Congress did not pass a September continuing resolution that would have averted the lapse [5] [6] [3]. Reporting of multiple cloture votes and repeated rejections underscores bipartisan inability to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate [6].
4. Conflicting characterizations in source materials — full-year vs. failed late-September CRs
Source materials first emphasize the enacted March full-year continuing appropriations statute (Public Law 119-4), while other accounts focus on the failure of September CRs that directly triggered the shutdown. There is no real contradiction once dated: Congress did pass an important appropriations act in March 2025, but later in the fiscal cycle it failed to enact additional CRs sought in September 2025, which resulted in a lapse of appropriations and a shutdown [1] [2] [3]. Analysts tracking the shutdown note that although March’s measures funded operations for FY2025, they did not resolve FY2026 funding, which was the subject of September negotiations [2] [3].
5. What each narrative emphasizes and potential policy agendas
Accounts emphasizing the March Public Law 119-4 highlight Congress’s early action to fund FY2025 programs and specific extensions for health and defense, which can be used to argue that lawmakers avoided immediate shortfalls [1] [2]. Sources stressing the September failures focus on political responsibility for the shutdown and on the procedural votes in the Senate, framing the issue as a breakdown in late-year bargaining [6] [3]. Both narratives are factual and reflect different epochs of the appropriations cycle: enacted March legislation versus failed September proposals — the distinction is crucial to understanding who controlled outcomes at each moment [1] [6].
6. Bottom line: what to tell a reader who asked “Did Congress pass any CRs before the 2025 shutdown?”
Yes: Congress passed a major continuing appropriations measure in March 2025 — the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act (Public Law 119-4) — and had earlier December 2024 stopgap action that led into March’s enactment. No: Congress did not pass the September 2025 continuing resolutions (H.R.5371 or S.2882) that were proposed to prevent the shutdown; both failed in the Senate and were never enacted. Thus, legislative action earlier in the year funded many FY2025 accounts, but the failure to enact late-September CRs precipitated the shutdown [1] [4] [3].