Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus broke with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday and voted for a House Republican-drafted bill to fund the government through Nov. 21, showing that Democrats disagree on how hard to go after the Trump administration.
The measure failed 55-45, even though it needed 60 votes to move forward.
Republicans will be introducing the bill again on Wednesday for a vote, where some believe even more Democrats could flip and pass the bill to re-open the government — which would be a brutal blow to Schumer.
Cortez Masto said she didn’t want to make things worse for her voters who are already having a hard time with rising costs and a faltering economy by putting the government at risk of shutting down.
“This administration doesn’t care about Nevadans, but I do. That’s why I cannot support a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration,” she said in a statement.
She said a government shutdown would “force tens of thousands of Nevada military personnel, union members, law enforcement agents and military nurses to work without pay” and that it would throw hundreds of union contractors at the Nevada National Security Site and across her state out of work.
King called the vote to keep the government open one of the toughest of his Senate career.
“I just came from the Senate floor where I took one of the most difficult votes I’ve taken since I’ve been in the Senate,” he said in a video statement. “Many feel that this was an opportunity to stand up to Donald Trump, to vote no and to fight back.
“The irony, the paradox is by shutting the government we’re actually giving Trump more power and that was why I voted yes. I did not want to hand Dondald Trump and Russell Vought and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government,” he said, referring to the White House budget director and Trump’s senior domestic policy advisor.
King pointed to Trump’s statement in the Oval Office threatening to do “irreversible” damage to Democratic priorities if the government shuts down.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier this month, Fetterman was the sole Democrat to vote for the GOP funding measure. He has emphasized several times that he wants to prevent a government shutdown and has advised other Democrats not to go too far with a temporary financing.
“The president has a lot of levers he could pull. This is one we could pull, but why would we pull that lever? Because that allows him to pull a lot more levers,” Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill
“I think that would be the ideal for Project 2025,” he added.
“There are some Democrats who are very unhappy with the situation they’re in,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said at a press conference after the vote.
“We need … another five” Democratic votes to pass the stopgap funding measure, Thune noted. “We need eight total.”
Republicans own 53 Senate seats, but they need eight Democratic votes to approve the budget plan because Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) doesn’t want to keep funding levels the same as they were under Biden.
It takes 60 votes for the continuing resolution to pass.
Thune said he will set up more votes on the funding bill that the House passed in the coming days in the hopes of getting more Democratic support.
