Senate Democrats play hardball, won't advance House stopgap

David Lerman, CQ-Roll Call on Mar 12, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are digging in for a fight on a House-passed stopgap funding measure that is needed by Friday night to avoid a partial government shutdown.

After a closed-door caucus lunch, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that Democrats would fight for a one-month funding extension that would allow time for Congress to finish full-year appropriations bills.

The House GOP’s continuing resolution, which passed on a mostly party-line vote Tuesday, would extend current funding through the end of this fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. Schumer said his caucus won’t provide the votes to get to the needed 60 to allow the measure to come to a final vote, raising the odds of a partial government shutdown when current stopgap funding runs out Friday at midnight.

“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,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “We should vote on that.”

That demand erects a roadblock to swift Senate passage of the House bill. But it doesn’t necessarily mean the House bill is dead.

Democrats have been torn over whether to vote for a House bill they dislike or trigger the shutdown, which some dislike even more. If Senate GOP leaders grant Democrats a vote on a one-month CR, which likely would fall short, some Democrats may then be willing to join Republicans in advancing the House bill.

But Senate leaders would need to engage in some delicate bipartisan negotiations to make such an arrangement possible. And until they do, many Democrats were unwilling to tip their hand publicly on how they might ultimately vote on the House measure.

“I’m weighing the badness of each option,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he feared backing a House bill that he said could help Elon Musk continue to gut federal agencies and fire thousands of federal workers through his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“The Musk brigade is doing so much damage, I mean colossal damage, to essential services, for kids and veterans and the like,” he said. “So I want everybody to know I am not going to have anything to do with helping that.”

But when asked if a partial shutdown could make that problem worse, Wyden said, “That’s what I’m saying for today.”

Democrats have some leverage to negotiate an endgame for the CR because Republicans need 60 votes to limit debate on the bill and they hold only 53 seats. And Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has signaled his opposition to the House bill.

That defection means GOP leaders would need at least eight Democrats to join them to push the CR over the finish line. Some Democrats might be willing to do so if they are first given a chance, perhaps through an amendment vote, to show their support for a one-month extension (S 924) and an 11th-hour effort to complete full appropriations bills for the current fiscal year, which is already half over.

Noting the need for bipartisan cooperation, Schumer said, “I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

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