Almost all Senate Democrats rejected a bipartisan bill Friday evening to pay active-duty troops and federal employees reporting to work, including Capitol Police officers, during the 38-day government shutdown.
Lawmakers voted 53 to 43 to advance the federal worker pay bill, falling seven votes short of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. The failed vote marks the second time a majority of Democrats have blocked legislation to pay some federal workers during the funding lapse.
Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia were the lone Democrats to cross party lines to support Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s Shutdown Fairness Act. Democratic Sen. John Fettermanof Pennsylvania, who supported the bill on Oct. 23, did not vote. Luján notably voted against the bill in October.
All federal employees have missed at least one full paycheck since the beginning of the shutdown on Oct. 1.
“Let me be clear about what a ‘no’ vote means,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-highest-ranking Senate Republican, said during floor remarks Friday. “A NO vote is a vote to refuse to pay air traffic controllers who are working. Refuse to pay TSA agents who are working. Refuse to pay military members who are serving around the world. Refuse to pay Capitol Police officers who are here in this building working.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune also criticized Democrats for choosing to prolong the shutdown despite its toll on essential federal employees working unpaid during the shutdown.
“If I were a Democrat I would be embarrassed – I mean, flat-out embarrassed – to walk into this building every day,” Thune said Friday. “To walk past the men and women of the Capitol Police, who are not getting paid thanks to Democrats. To walk past junior staffers, many of whom are undoubtedly frantic by this point as they wonder how they’re going to pay their rent and continue to buy food.”
Democrats said they opposed the legislation because it did not cover all federal workers. However, the caucus has refused to reopen the government, which would ensure all federal workers are paid.
The failed vote comes as some progressive Democrats have vowed to continue fighting, claiming voters gave the party a mandate to keep the government shuttered following Tuesday night’s election victories.
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy is one of a handful of Democrats who have argued the ending the funding lapse could jeopardize lawmakers’ standing with the party’s base.
“The 2026 election is just 12 months away,” Murphy told Punchbowl News on Thursday. “And if we surrender without having gotten anything, and we cause a lot of folks in this country who had started to believe in the Democratic Party to retreat again, I worry that it will be hard to sort of get them back up off the mat in time for next fall’s election.”
Republicans rejected an offer from Democrats on Friday afternoon to extend Obamacare subsidies slated to expire at the year’s end in exchange for ending the shutdown.
GOP lawmakers have been adamant throughout the 38-day shutdown that they will not negotiate on health care policy until Democrats vote to fund the government.
“Democrats want to give $35 billion next year to insurance companies for subsidies with no fraud controls and to benefit the wealthy. Hard no, Chuck,” Senate Republicans’ X account wrote, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
President Donald Trump called on the Senate to stay in session over the weekend to hammer out a deal. If lawmakers do not come to an agreement, Trump called on Republicans to invoke the nuclear option and kill the Senate’s legislative filibuster to pass a funding measure on their own.
Thune told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that Republicans lack the votes to nuke the longstanding procedural rule.
“Not even close,” the majority leader said of the whip count.
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