Senate votes to avoid government shutdown

The Senate voted mostly along party lines Friday afternoon to pass the House Republican-drafted bill to fund government through September, avoiding a government shutdown only hours before funding was due to lapse.

President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

The final vote was 54-46. Two members of the Democratic caucus voted for the bill, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is retiring at the end of her current term, and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted no.

Passage of the bill means that lawmakers won’t battle over funding the government again until the fall, clearing the way for Republicans to focus on enacting Trump’s agenda, such as funding border security and extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The spending bill narrowly passed the House on Tuesday by a vote of 217-213, with only one Democrat voting for it.

It triggered a fierce battle within the Senate Democratic caucus over how to handle the package, which was crafted without any Democratic input in the House.

The legislation will increase defense spending by $6 billion and boost border enforcement funding and will cut nondefense spending by $13 billion.

More problematic for many Democrats, it does not include language instructing the Trump administration on how to spend the funding. Some Democratic lawmakers warned that would allow Trump and his advisors to shift around funding to favor their own priorities, regardless of what Congress wanted.

Democrats led by Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, urged their colleagues to defeat the House proposal and instead pass a clean 30-day government funding stopgap.

Merkley told CNN in an interview that he was “hell no” on the House bill.

He argued that accepting the House GOP bill would only embolden Trump and Musk.

“You don’t stop a bully by handing over your lunch money, and you don’t stop a tyrant by giving him more power,” he said.

Leading progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also led the charge from the left to kill the House-passed bill, helping to whip up strong opposition to the bill from party activists.

Only centrist Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) came out early in favor of advancing the House bill, warning that a government shutdown would create chaos and could plunge the nation into a recession.

Senate Democrats had long lunch meetings throughout the week to debate how to best handle the impasse, and the discussion grew so passionate that senators could be heard yelling through the thick oak doors of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room, just off the Senate floor.

Senate Republicans control 53 seats and needed at least eight Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster and advance the legislation to a final vote because Paul announced early on he would oppose the House bill.

Controversial bills typically need 60 votes to get past a filibuster.

House Republicans adjourned after passing their funding bill on Tuesday and made it clear they had no intention to return to Washington before the Friday funding deadline.

That put pressure on Senate Democrats as it became apparent that if they blocked the House bill, it would likely result in a government shutdown.

The House bill appeared to be in serious danger of failing until Thursday, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced on the Senate floor that he would vote to advance the measure.

Schumer acknowledged that the House-drafted bill was “very bad,” but he warned the consequences of a potential shutdown would be “much, much worse.”

He said a shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, “carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”

Schumer told reporters Thursday evening that efforts to instead pass a clean 30-day funding bill failed to pick up any Republican support.

Schumer’s decision sparked an angry backlash from liberal Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who accused him of “betrayal.”

After learning of Schumer’s decision, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that “there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal.”

“And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board, the entire party,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez said Schumer had betrayed House Democrats in districts that Trump won in 2024 who took very tough votes against the bill earlier this week. Only a single Democrat voted for the measure in the House.

She said those vulnerable House Democrats took a tough vote “to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, just to see some Senate Democrats” acquiesce to Musk.

“I think it is a huge slap in the face,” she said.

Fetterman clapped back on Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism, arguing that she and other liberals didn’t have an endgame to end a government shutdown.

“I hope you can relay how little I care about her views on this,” he said when asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments

“I’m going to stand on what I happen to believe is the right thing to do but ask her, ‘What’s the exit plan once we shut the government down?’ What about all the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?” he asked.

“What about the ones that won’t have any paycheck? She’ll have her paycheck, though,” he said.

With political cover from Schumer, eight other Democrats voted to advance the bill Friday afternoon.

In addition to Schumer, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Shaheen and Fetterman voted to advance the measure. King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, also voted to bring it to a final vote.

The Senate considered and rejected several amendments before voting to pass the bill.

One amendment sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) would have reinstated veterans who were fired from their federal jobs under Trump.

Another sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) would have eliminated the Department of Government Efficiency.

A third sponsored by Merkley would have eliminated the $20 billion rescission to IRS tax enforcement funding that House Republicans included in the bill.

A fourth sponsored by Paul would have codified the cuts to foreign assistance recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency.

Senate Republicans beat back all of the Democratic amendments, and a bipartisan majority defeated Paul’s amendment. If senators had made any changes to the bill, it would have required the legislation to go back to the House for final approval, which would have dragged its enactment past the funding deadline.

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