Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked a $1.1 billion federal funding measure to battle the Zika virus, ending the chances that any new Zika bill will become law before Labor Day.
The bill failed in a 52-44 procedural vote, short of the 60 votes it needed to advance to a final vote.
Lawmakers are expected to leave for a seven-week recess Thursday. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed a motion to bring the bill up again, but Congress does not reconvene until Sept. 6.
“It’s hard to understand why Democrats continue to filibuster the funding needed to fight Zika,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.
Democrats want a new bill. They would agree to the $1.1 billion but argue that the measure put forward by the GOP strips funding from other parts of the budget to pay for it, including $543 million for Obamacare.
Democrats also oppose a provision allowing the Confederate flag to fly in military cemeteries and language blocking new healthcare funds from going to Planned Parenthood clinics in Puerto Rico, where the Zika virus is spreading.
Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans have refused to sit down and write a new bill and are ignoring his outreach.
“We are wiling to compromise,” Reid said.
Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, denied Reid’s claim that Republicans have refused to negotiate with Democrats.
“That’s not true,” Cornyn said. “We are not capitulating. And I think they are feeling the heat or they wouldn’t be talking negotiations. They’ve got themselves in a corner and they don’t know how to get themselves out of it. They just need to vote for this and get it behind them.”
Republicans also say Democrats are using Zika as a political weapon in an attempt to hurt the GOP in an election year.
“The Democrats for some reason or another decided to play politics with it,” said Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “They need to drop the politics and pass the bill so we can respond to this real need.”
In the meantime, it’s not clear whether the government needs any more money to fight Zika over the summer. Republican appropriators said the Centers for Disease Control has only spent about $100 million out of a $590 million allocation made earlier this year.
