With Democrats divided and pointing fingers, the GOP-controlled Senate will press forward Friday afternoon with a key procedural vote to advance a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown before a midnight deadline.
If enough Democrats join Republicans to cross the 60-vote threshold, the Senate will move to a final vote on the six-month funding extension, where a simple majority is needed for passage. The bill cleared the House on a party-line vote earlier this week.
Under pressure from his left flank and House Democrats to block the GOP funding package, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had kept his cards close to the vest about his shutdown strategy throughout the week.
But on Thursday, Schumer said he would vote to advance the funding bill, giving cover to other Democrats to do the same and significantly lowering the threat of a catastrophic shutdown amid broader economic uncertainty.
Defending his decision in a floor speech Friday, Schumer warned that a shutdown would be far worse than passing the GOP bill. he argued that a shutdown would give Trump, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) even more power to slash the federal workforce and government services. They could do that, Schumer said, by dictating who are "essential" and non-essential workers in a shutdown.
"I will vote to keep the government open. I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people. Clearly, this is a Hobson’s choice; the CR is a bad bill. But as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option," Schumer said.
"A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. ... It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, state and country," he continued.
So far, just one other Democrat in the chamber, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has publicly said he would vote to advance the funding bill. With Republicans controlling 53 seats, at least seven Democrats will need to support the procedural move for the bill to move to final passage. Republicans appear to be largely united, though Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has vowed to oppose the measure.
Schumer's move has infuriated House Democrats, who were gathered 40 miles away in Leesburg, Virginia, at their annual policy retreat. All but one House Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, had voted against Speaker Mike Johnson's six-month bill on Tuesday.
Ahead of Friday's procedural vote, House Democratic women held a news conference and urged their Senate colleagues to hold the line against the GOP bill.
"The American people literally are shouting from the rooftops that this is a five-alarm emergency and that we cannot hand the keys of the kingdom of this big, beautiful democracy that we love over to somebody who has total disregard, not only for the rule of law, but for American lives,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the House DOGE subcommittee.
House Democrats and many Senate Democrats want Congress to pass a 30-day stopgap funding bill instead that would buy bipartisan negotiators more time to strike a yearlong appropriations deal on funding the government.
"This is our opportunity to speak directly to the American people to say, 'No.' This Republican-only bill is not enough," House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said Friday as he closed out the three-day retreat. "Republicans continue to dismantle government over the last few months. They are already leading us into a shutdown — that has been their goal and their focus. We should not be supporting those efforts."
The legislation is not a typical stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution or CR, that simply extends funding at current levels. The 99-page spending bill includes a slight increase in military spending and a $13 billion cut in domestic nondefense spending. It was crafted by GOP leaders, who took input from the White House and excluded Democrats from the process.
The bill would also force the District of Columbia to revert back to its fiscal year 2024 budget levels, cutting local spending by more than $1 billion, which could impact schools, police and and other services.
On top of that, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and other Democrats lamented that the bill is structured in a way that hands the Trump administration too much flexibility in how to spend certain pots of money. A memo from Murray said the GOP measure creates “slush funds for the Trump administration to reshape spending priorities, eliminate longstanding programs, pick winners and losers.”
Speaking on the floor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued that lawmakers have been forced to pass yet another stopgap funding measure because Democrats, who controlled the Senate majority in the last Congress, did not complete the regular appropriations process last year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee had passed and sent to the floor 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills that fund federal agencies and the legislative branch, Thune said, but Schumer never brought them to a vote.
"So today we're trying to finish up last year's work so that we can begin to do this year's work," Thune said Friday. "To be clear, Republicans aren't thrilled about another CR but it is our best option to make sure that last year's failure by Democrats doesn't interfere with this year's appropriations process."
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