The Senate is returning to Capitol Hill Wednesday -- the first day of a government shutdown -- and is expected to again take votes on government funding bills that mirror the failed votes they took on Tuesday as congressional leaders continue to blame the opposing party for the shutdown.
The Senate is set to vote Wednesday morning on two votes on bills aimed at funding the government. The government shutdown took effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. The votes are on the same two bills that the Senate failed to advance on Tuesday.
The first will be, once again, a procedural vote on the Democrats' government funding proposal that includes the health care provisions they've been seeking. It would need 60 votes to pass and is expected to fail in the GOP-controlled Senate.
The second vote in that series will be a procedural vote on the clean, House-backed Republican stop-gap funding bill that failed Tuesday night. Three Democrats voted for that Tuesday and all eye will be on the Democrats to see if any others defect from their party position to support that bill during Wednesday's votes. It would also need 60 votes to advance.
Majority Leader John Thune blamed the Democrats for the shutdown during a press conference Wednesday morning.
"They have taken the American people hostage," Thune said of Democrats.
Thune said that Republicans are now in the hunt for those few additional Democrats to support their clean, short term funding bill.
"There are others out there, I think who don't want to shut down the government, but who are being put in a position by their leadership that should make them, ought to make all of them very uncomfortable," Thune said after Tuesday night's failed votes. "So we'll see."
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto and Angus King (an independent who caucuses with Democrats) bucked their party leader Tuesday night and voted with Republicans on a short-term funding bill aimed at keeping the government open for seven more weeks.
Speaker Mike Johnson slammed Democrats during the Wednesday morning press conference.
"Every single bit of this was entirely avoidable,” Johnson said, adding that Democrats should pass the clean CR as they did in the House.
"They have dragged us into a another reckless shutdown to appeal to their far-left base," Johnson said.
"The longer this goes on, the more pain that will be inflicted,” he said.
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to come to the negotiating table.
“So, we want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can't do it in their partisan way, where they just say 'It's our way or the highway,'” Schumer reiterated at a news conference following Senate votes Tuesday night.
Schumer rehashed the failed votes on the Senate floor -- placing the blame on Republicans who “have failed to get enough votes to avoid a shutdown.”
The Senate is expected to take votes on other matters in the afternoon, around 2 p.m., and then they're expected to depart for Yom Kippur. The Senate will likely be out on Thursday, but return on Friday and into the weekend as negotiations continue.