The Daily Populous Thursday March 13rd, 2025 night edition
Authored by nbcnews.com and submitted by nbcnews

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday that Democrats would reject a government funding bill that Republicans wrote and passed through the House, leaving it uncertain whether Congress can avert a shutdown before Friday night's deadline.

The House on Tuesday narrowly approved a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through the end of September.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said on the floor, calling for a one-month funding bill that provides more time to negotiate a deal.

“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” he said. “I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

He spoke after a lunch meeting between Democratic senators on Wednesday. They went in torn over whether to vote for the House's six-month measure, with some worried that a shutdown would be worse, even as they widely disapprove of the House bill.

The government will shut down at the end of Friday without a new funding law signed by President Donald Trump, who has endorsed the House legislation. Republicans control 53 Senate seats and need 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.

“There are not the votes right now to pass it,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters after the meeting. “Democrats had nothing to do with this bill. And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. And so that’s what we are insisting on.”

Still, some Democrats fear that a shutdown would be worse than accepting the bill, even though they didn't have input on crafting it.

“Quite frankly, both outcomes are bad,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told reporters Wednesday. “Elections have consequences, but this is an extreme bill. If it passes, it will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground. If the government shuts down, that will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground, and so that is the dilemma in which we found ourselves.”

“Additionally, the problem I have with the bill is that I think it advances this project that we’re seeing come from the executive branch, this power grab that does not respect that the power of the purse is with the Congress,” he said.

Outside the room where Democrats held their lunch meeting, reporters could hear senators loudly making their point to their colleagues inside as the party tried to solve for a problem with two outcomes they aren’t interested in.

“I’m weighing the badness of each option,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who didn’t take a position on the bill.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has said he will support the stopgap funding bill because it is preferable to a government shutdown.

Many Senate Democrats said they want a one-month bill to finish work on a new appropriations agreement. Others said they disapprove of the House bill's boost to military spending and the cuts to nondefense domestic programs. And still others say they want guardrails on Elon Musk's powers to dismantle the government without congressional approval.

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said Democrats “are unified in not wanting to shut down the government, and what we need to do is vote on the short-term” bill for one month.

But Republicans have little appetite for the one-month measure and are resigned to a continuing resolution through the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The White House has pressured the party to get the issue off its plate so it can focus on a multitrillion-dollar, Republican-only bill to advance Trump's legislative agenda on the border and taxes and in other policy areas.

House Republicans passed the six-month government funding measure on a nearly party-line vote of 217-213. And with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as a firm no, at least eight Democrats will be needed to break a filibuster in the Senate.

Some Democratic senators and aides worry that supporting the bill would set a bad precedent — they would effectively be telling House Republicans that they can write government funding measures without Democrats at the negotiating table.

"That's also one of the issues with what we're faced here," Kelly said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he’s open to having a conversation with Senate Democrats about an amendment vote on a short-term stopgap funding bill.

“I think right now, they’re still trying to figure out how they want to see this wrap up,” Thune told reporters. “But in the end, the vehicle that’s available to us — and the House is long gone — that funds the government is the is the CR that came over from the House.”

The House is on recess and isn't scheduled to return to Washington until March 24.

Another Senate Republican said it's too late to change the bill now.

“The problem is, if it passes here, then the House is gone and we get a shutdown on Friday,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday. “So I don’t believe there’s going to be an amendment vote on the short term CR, I could be wrong.”

Time is quickly running out. The Senate can’t vote on any bill by the Friday midnight deadline unless all 100 senators agree to skip the hurdles.

“At least for now, I don’t see the votes. Based on my reading of the end of the meeting, I don’t see the votes there right now for passing the House Republican” bill Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told reporters Wednesday.

Republicans are betting that Democrats won't have the appetite to allow a shutdown despite their disagreements with the House bill.

Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., slammed House Republicans for cutting Democrats out of the process and said they will be blamed for a potential shutdown.

“Republicans are in charge of the Senate, in charge of the House, and have the White House. The American people know who’s in charge,” he said. “It’s ridiculous for Republicans to try to blame the party that’s the minority everywhere.”

Meanwhile, at their retreat in Leesburg, Virginia, House Democrats urged their Senate colleagues to block the bill. All but one, Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, voted against the funding bill Tuesday.

"We’re asking Senate Democrats to vote no on this continuing resolution, which is not clean, and it makes cuts across the board," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said. "And it’s going to be one of those things where people are going to look at this vote and every bad thing that now happens with DOGE and Donald Trump, Elon Musk, you can go back to this vote. So we’re asking the Senate Democrats to vote no."

hmr0987 on March 12nd, 2025 at 20:24 UTC »

Good. Now get your marketing arm of the party out there to flood the news networks with why. Don’t give them an inch without earning it.

AdvancedUsernaming on March 12nd, 2025 at 20:22 UTC »

Thank fucking Christ. Obstructing the Republicans should be the only policy goal for Congressional Democrats during this administration.

cbc277 on March 12nd, 2025 at 20:18 UTC »

As a federal worker, I’m glad Democrats are taking a stand and doing something instead of nothing.