Senate rejects both Republican and Democrat govt funding stopgaps, risking a shutdown

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

The U.S. Senate failed to pass either Democrats’ or Republicans’ government funding proposals Friday to prevent a government shutdown.

Senators have now left town for a week-long recess, leaving only two days when they return to pass some kind of funding stopgap before the government shuts down on Oct. 1.

Republicans’ Continuing Resolution would have extended current government funding levels until Nov. 21, buying lawmakers time to pass all 12 annual appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026. It also included $30 million for additional lawmaker security and $58 million for U.S. Supreme Court judges and members of the executive branch.

Republicans’ CR passed the House Friday morning and immediately went to the Senate for a vote.

Democrats’ CR would have extended funding until Oct. 31 and included dozens of extremely costly policy riders, including permanently extending the temporary COVID-19 era expansion of Obamacare Premium Tax Credits that are set to expire in December.

Both bills failed to meet the chamber’s 60-vote threshold, with no Republicans supporting Democrats’ CR and two Republicans – Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, – joining all but one Democrat in voting against Republicans’ proposal. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voted yes on both proposals.

Both sides blamed each other for the failure to pass a funding stopgap.

“Instead of working with Republicans to fund the government through a clean, nonpartisan Continuing Resolution so that we can get back to bipartisan negotiations on appropriations, Democrats are yielding to the desires of their rabidly leftist base and are attempting to hold government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, fumed.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., echoed other Democrats in his justification for voting no on the clean CR: it “fails to fund health care.”

“This is a crisis & I refuse to act like this is business as usual,” Warnock posted on X.

Neither side is backing down, however. Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately made motions to reconsider passage on the bills when Congress returns.

“We’re prepared when we get back to have a vote on a bill, already passed by the House, and ready to be signed by the president,” Thune said.