The Hill - Senate Democrats say they will not vote for the House-passed six-month government funding package, which would boost defense spending and cut nondefense programs, unless they first get a vote on a 30-day funding stopgap to give bipartisan negotiators more time to reach a deal on the annual appropriations bills. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) announced on the floor that Democratic senators would not vote to advance the House bill — at least not now — and called for the Senate to instead pass a 30-day “clean” government funding stopgap.
“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 [continuing resolution],” he said.
“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. We should vote on that. I hope, I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday,” Schumer added.
Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority, which means 13 GOP members would need to vote with all Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold most legislation needs to reach to advance in the upper chamber.
Another major problem is that the House adjourned for the week after passing its six-month government funding measure. Even if the Senate manages to pass a 30-day stopgap, there’s no guarantee the House will pick it up before government funding lapses Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment