Senate Dems join with Republicans to advance government funding bill as shutdown looms

A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance a stopgap government funding bill – hours before a partial shutdown of federal agencies was set to take effect Friday at midnight.

The House-passed GOP plan to keep the government funded through September cleared the Senate’s filibuster in a 62-38 vote, with 10 Democrats voting to advance the measure.

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Gary Peters of Michigan, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Chuck Schumer of New York joined independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to move the bill forward.

Senators will now consider four amendments to tack on to the bill before it heads to final floor vote, where it is expected to pass by simple majority.

The procedural vote came after a crop of younger congressional Democrats in both chambers railed against Schumer for having signaled his opposition to the Republican agenda earlier this week — only to reverse course within 24 hours.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) chided Schumer for the abrupt U-turn in a floor speech Friday.

“Last summer, the Appropriations Committee reported out 11 of its 12 bills with bipartisan support. Six of those bills passed out of the committee unanimously,” the Republican leader said.

“But month after month, Leader Schumer found something more important to do than fund the government. And not one – not one – of those 11 bipartisan bills ever came to the floor.”

Thune added that the GOP wasn’t “thrilled” about the funding bill, which was a carry over of the spending levels set by former President Joe Biden during his last year in office, but his conference sense it was the “best option” to prevent a shutdown.

The bill — a continuing resolution that will essentially extend fiscal 2024 spending levels through the start of the 2026 fiscal year — is backed by President Trump.

Under the measure, defense spending will get a $6 billion boost from fiscal year 2024, but non-defense discretionary spending will fall $13 billion beneath the previous fiscal year.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is also getting a slight boost to nearly $10 billion, up from the previous year’s spending level, to carry out Trump’s mass deportations.