Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) kept his caucus mostly in lockstep on the third vote to fund the government as Republicans hope to peel off Democrats uncomfortable with a protracted government shutdown.
Schumer did not lose any additional votes on Wednesday as Republicans put up the same House-passed funding bill that failed hours before a government shutdown began at midnight.
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In a 55-45 vote, two Democrats and one independent supported the bill, as they did on Tuesday, but other senators who were viewed as possible defectors opposed the extension, which would reopen the government for seven weeks.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a fiscal hawk, was the only Republican to buck his party and vote “no.”
The outcome, short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a Senate filibuster, signals that Democrats are giving leadership space to navigate the standoff. In a separate failed vote minutes earlier, Schumer’s caucus unanimously supported a dueling proposal that reopens the government but with multiple concessions on healthcare.
Still, Republicans believe they can wear down the opposition and plan to keep putting their “clean” funding extension up for votes.
“There were three Democrats that came over and voted with us, because they know this strategy is a losing one and it hurts the American people,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in a Wednesday morning press conference with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) outside the Capitol.
Simultaneously, the White House has threatened to use the expanded powers it has during a shutdown to lay off workers and scuttle Democrat-supported programs. On Wednesday, it applied pressure to Democratic leadership by freezing about $18 billion in infrastructure projects for New York, the home state of Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
That threat was the basis for Schumer’s caving in a March fight over government funding. He, along with nine other members of his caucus, handed Republicans the votes to extend funding until Sept. 30.
But Democratic leadership, under pressure from the party base to make a stand, is panning the “intimidation tactics” of the administration and using the budget as leverage to extend enhanced Obamacare tax credits that expire at the end of the year.
A large group of senators huddled on the floor as the funding vote was underway, with talks centered on whether Democrats could come up with a “Plan B” that gives them “room to breathe,” but Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), one of the Democrats in the huddle, characterized the conversations as senators “spitballing” and not something that has formally been brought to leadership.
He did not outright confirm that the group discussed a shorter-term funding measure that would allow for negotiations over the Obamacare subsidies to continue, but he argued that Democrats would lose nothing with such a proposal.
“Should things not work out, we still can go back to Plan A,” he told the Washington Examiner.
The floor discussions also included Republicans such as Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and John Cornyn (R-TX).
In the absence of a deal, Schumer managed to keep multiple Democrats from switching their votes on Wednesday. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Gary Peters (D-MI), both of whom are retiring and voted for the March funding bill, again opposed the bill, as did Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH).
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Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is the only Democrat to support the House-passed bill all three times, including for an initial vote taken on Sept. 19, while Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Angus King (I-ME), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, first broke ranks on Tuesday.
Both Cortez Masto and King invoked Schumer’s argument from March that Trump would have the authority to “decimate” the federal government in a shutdown.
