Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a majority of Senate Democrats voted Wednesday afternoon to keep the government shuttered despite mounting consequences from the prolonged funding lapse.
Democrats rejected a bipartisan funding measure that would restore government operations for the sixth time. The same trio of Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and independent Maine Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, broke ranks to join Republicans in voting “yes” on the House-passed spending bill.
The vote tally has remained virtually unchanged since the opening day of the shutdown. Most Senate Democrats remain dug-in against reopening the government despite previously railing against shutdowns during prior funding fights.
Schumer told reporters on Wednesday that Democrats were winning the shutdown battle despite some Americans facing financial stress and disrupted access to federal programs due to the funding lapse.
“In almost every poll we’ve seen, they blame Trump and the Republicans double digits more than they blame the Democrats,” Schumer said. “You put that all together, they’re sort of squirming.”
The eight-day shutdown has disrupted air travel and businesses that rely on federal contracts are beginning to lay off staff.
Active-duty service members and border patrol agents — among other federal employees — are also temporarily reporting to work without pay.
The government shutdown will cost the U.S. economy $15 billion in losses per week, according to analysis released by the White House.
“Democrats are holding the American people hostage to extract far-left concessions,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said on Wednesday. “They’re telling our service members their paychecks are negotiable. They’re telling small businesses their dreams are collateral damage in a partisan fight. They’re telling mothers with young children their WIC benefits are leverage for far-left demands.”
Across the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson also torched Democrats for refusing to relent their shutdown strategy despite federal employees facing the threat of a missed paycheck.
“So today, the U.S. Capitol police officers are going to come to work to bravely protect U.S. government officials and staff in these dangerous times. And they’re going to do that without pay,” Johnson said. “Many Democrats in this chamber, by the way I want to note, are going to receive paychecks this month while the men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police who are protecting them will not.”
King told reporters that he would hold firm in supporting the bipartisan funding bill to reopen the government despite the measure being widely opposed by the Democrat caucus.
“The power that the president and OMB and Vought and Miller are exercising under the shutdown is a real threat to our country,” King said. “We got to get this shutdown over with, because I think the worst is yet to come.”
Schumer made a similar argument regarding how a shutdown could empower the president to reduce the size of government when he voted with Republicans to avert a shutdown in March.
The upper chamber chose not to vote on the House-passed CR on Tuesday. Senate Republicans instead confirmed 107 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single package over Democrats’ objections.
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