Senate lawmakers blocked a stopgap bill on Tuesday that would temporarily fund the government and provide $1.1 billion for the fight against Zika, just days before a bill is needed to avoid a partial government shutdown after Friday.
The bill failed mostly by the hand of Democrats, who said Republicans must also add federal aid for the Flint, Mich., water crisis before they can support it.
But a dozen GOP lawmakers also voted against the bill, which the conservative Heritage Foundation opposed because it would allow clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood to access some federal funds, among other objections.
Sixty votes were needed to advance the bill, but it failed 45-55 the first time around. Republican leaders called up the bill again in the hopes it could survive, but it failed again.
The votes send Senate Democrats and Republicans back to the negotiating table with just three days left until the end of the fiscal year. Without passage of some sort of funding bill by then, the government would face a partial government shutdown.
Senate Republicans accused Democrats of delaying passage of the deal in order to prevent vulnerable GOP incumbents from returning home to campaign. More than a half-dozen GOP seats are at risk of Democratic takeover, which has put the Republican Senate majority in jeopardy.
“We’re now staring at a Friday deadline to keep the government open,” said Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas. “And of course this was their design all along, to drag their feet and delay and turn from one excuse to another in order to keep from actually working in a bipartisan way to appropriate the money to fund the government so the government would continue to function.”
The stalemate means Republicans may have to add to the spending package more than $200 million in federal aid for Flint, or pay for it by stripping out flood aid for several ravaged states, including hard-hit Louisiana. The GOP could also decide to run the risk of a partial shutdown, although doing so would run political risks just weeks before the election.
Democrats said they believe it is unfair to include money for flood aid while leaving out Flint funding.
“People of Flint are told no, and then all of a sudden, there is help for Louisiana,” Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said in a floor speech urging lawmakers to block the bill. Stabenow said the GOP should refrain from stripping out the flood money, however.
“It would be a tragedy and outrageous way to make decisions if the answer to all of this is, OK, we won’t help Louisiana, either,” Stabenow said. “That is not what we are suggesting.”
Republicans have so far insisted that the Flint money should be left in a water resources authorization bill that has already passed the Senate. The House will take up its version of the bill this week, but it does not include Flint money.
House GOP leaders moved the bill to the floor this week in an effort to hasten a House-Senate conference where, they said, negotiations could be held on whether to add the Flint money.
House Democrats said Tuesday they are angry the House did not include the Flint money in its own water resources bill, and will not vote for a spending package that does not include the funding. The House bill could be amended on the floor this week to include money for Flint, but the funding would have to wait until the two chambers hash out a compromise bill that can clear Congress and get signed into law.
