Obama signs $1.1 trillion spending bill

President Barack Obama has signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill that keeps the government operating over the next nine months.

The legislation was a bipartisan compromise that angered liberals and conservatives alike but avoided a government shutdown and delayed partisan clashes over immigration to next year.

Ensuring a debate over immigration, though, the legislation only finances the Homeland Security Department until Feb. 27.

The bill was one of the last acts of Congress under the current Republican House and Democratic-controlled Senate. In January, the new Congress will return with Republicans in charge of both chambers.

The spending bill retains cuts negotiated in previous budget battles and rolls back some banking regulations. But it retains spending for Obama's health care law and pays for the administration's fight against Ebola.

Passage of the 1,603-page bill on Saturday was a long, tough struggle in the Senate and the House of Representatives marked by bitter disputes over changes to banking regulations and Obama's recent executive order on immigration.

Liberal Democrats, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, objected to a weakening of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, while conservative Republicans, led by Tea Party firebrand Ted Cruz, tried to sink it for failing to stop Obama's order.

Cruz's tactics to delay the bill created an opening for Democrats in a rare Saturday session to push through dozens of Obama's nominations who were opposed by Republicans, from judges to energy regulators. His party colleagues were angered.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Republican said the senator apologized on Tuesday to colleagues "for inconveniencing their personal schedules " over the weekend.

Cruz still believes, the spokeswoman said, that fighting to stop Obama's new program easing deportations for millions of illegal immigrants "was critically important."

The apology to Republican senators came at a closed-door lunch when Cruz, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, "was contrite and made an effort to explain to people he wished he hadn't done it," said a source familiar with the meeting.

It was the second time in a little over a year that Cruz, a freshman with presidential aspirations, has attempted to stop a key Obama administration initiative by denying government funds. He was a central figure in a 16-day government shutdown in October 2013, when he persuaded Republicans to try to withhold funds from Obamacare, the landmark health care reform law.

Wire services