With less than three days to go before government funding runs out, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is calling for a vote on the 30-day continuing resolution that top Democratic appropriators unveiled Monday night.
The guidance from the Democratic leader comes as Senate Democrats struggle with how to move forward after House Republicans shoved through the Trump-backed seven month continuing resolution on Tuesday. Some Senate Democrats have expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to avert a shutdown, while most of the party is opposed to helping Republicans as the Trump administration and Elon Musk continue to flout congressional spending appropriations, rescind funding for federal programs and shutter agencies.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort but Republicans choose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without 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 Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. “Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that.”
“I hope, I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday,” Schumer added.
The short-term CR Schumer is referring to is a Democrat-backed plan that would keep the government funded through April 11, giving the negotiators on the appropriations committees a chance to come up with a bipartisan plan.
The 30-day CR would almost certainly fail if the Republican-controlled Senate were to vote on it. And on the off chance it did succeed, it would not survive a vote on the House floor.
Locked out of power, the short-term CR and the push for a bipartisan spending bill is believed to be part of a messaging effort by Democrats who want to be able to say they did not roll over and accept the MAGA funding bill that House Republicans and President Donald Trump are shoving down their throats.
Schumer’s Wednesday remarks point to a possible off the floor negotiation. The public ask to vote on the 30-day stopgap would likely come in exchange for Democrats giving Senate Republicans the votes they need to invoke cloture on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) CR on the Senate floor. That would mean that Senate Republicans would ultimately be able to pass the House-passed bill with a simple majority, eliminating the need for Democratic votes.
With less than three days to go before a possible shutdown, Senate Republican leadership will have to make a decision on how to proceed soon.
Schumer’s floor remarks, pushing for a vote on the short-term CR, came after an almost two-hour-long caucus meeting among Senate Democrats Wednesday afternoon.
The lengthy closed-door meeting was filled with audible ups and downs. Bursts of loud applause and yelling could be heard through one of the doors leading into the meeting room. At one point a male senator could be heard shouting inside the room with clear frustration in his voice.
Most senators stayed silent as they exited the meeting, avoiding questions from a large gaggle of reporters waiting outside the room. Others did briefly comment on the discussions that took place behind closed doors.
“I think there’s a pretty consistent theme that we want to get amendments,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters following the caucus meeting. “And we think we are entitled to get an amendment vote. And we’re not going to support cloture until we get that.”
Kaine also echoed Schumer’s point that the current long-term CR being pushed by the President and Republicans was written without Democrats, adding that if they want the procedural votes, Republicans need to allow Democrats’ amendment votes.
Coming out of the lengthy meeting, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) also hyped the “opportunity to invest in 30-day CR and complete appropriations bills,” adding that Congress should be funding the government through bipartisan appropriations bills.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) — who has already indicated he will be supporting the 7-month CR — did not attend the meeting. As Democratic senators walked into the scheduled lunch meeting, Fetterman got in an elevator and left the floor with staffers.
“I’ve been clear,” Fetterman told reporters waiting outside the Senate floor later that day. “I didn’t like the CR … but I’m not going to vote to shut the federal government down. I can’t do that. That’s chaos. And I’ll never vote for chaos. Or more chaos than what we already have.”
Senate Democrats will eventually have to make a decision. Support the MAGA CR — with no guardrails against Trump and his billionaire friend’s rampage through the federal government and congressionally approved funds — or allow Republicans to try to blame them for a government shutdown.
And they are well aware of the impossible choice.
“A CR may enable more firings but closing the government may be even more welcome to Elon Musk because it gives him an excuse to fire more people. And he can blame it on the Democrats,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “I’m leaning toward no on the CR because I think it creates a slush fund for Donald Trump without any real guardrails or accountability to the Congress, and we should not be ceding the power of the purse in this way.”
