In the fall of 2002, Republicans and Democrats had been unable to agree on the government's spending bill for 2003. Republicans wanted to cut many programs, while Democrats wanted to fund them more generously. The result was stalemate, and a series of stopgap measures (continuing resolutions, or CRs) that funded the government at the previous year's level. The Republicans increased their margin in the House and took back the Senate after the fall 2002 elections, but their strategy still involved two more CRs. Obey (D-WI) saw the first of these as an opportunity to correct some policy decisions from the previous year that Progressives and many Democrats had disliked. He moved to recommit the CR to a special committee with instructions to make changes related to Homeland Security. The first change would forbid the Homeland Security Department from contracting with companies that incorporated overseas to avoid taxes, and the second would suspend liability protections in the CR for vaccine makers. Progressives supported both measures as a way of preventing corporate irresponsibility, so they favored Obey's motion. Even so, the motion fell 192-220, with only a single member of the House voting across party lines.