Senate Democrats are mulling over whether to support the House GOP-backed government funding bill or own the consequences for causing a partial government shutdown.
The Senate is slated to vote on a stopgap funding bill to fund government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year to avert a shutdown set to occur on March 14 after midnight. With government funding bills needing 60 votes to overcome the Senate filibuster, GOP senators are emphasizing that the onus is on their Democratic colleagues to keep the government open or suffer the blame for causing a shutdown.
“Republicans will ensure law enforcement gets their paychecks. Democrats seem more interested in playing political games,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming wrote in an op-ed Monday. “Shutting down the government is not an outcome President Trump wants. It is not an outcome Senate Republicans want. It costs money to shut down the government. And it costs more money to reopen the government.”
“Shutdown Democrats are acting irresponsibly,” Barrasso continued. “They are failing American taxpayers, failing our service members, and failing our border patrol agents. If there is a shutdown, it will be driven by and directed by the Democrats.”
Veteran political analyst Brit Hume said on Fox News Monday that Senate Democrats could suffer political fallout by withholding votes for the CR.
“It’ll be pretty plainly obvious that by refusing to provide a handful of votes, they cause the government shutdown,” Hume said. “So I’m not sure they’ll be able to escape it this time, but we’ll see if they’re going to try.”
House GOP leadership unveiled a 99-page stopgap government funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), on Saturday to fund government operations through the end of September. The bill is the product of close coordination with the Trump administration to ensure the government is spending less money than the previous fiscal year while boosting defense spending and funding for veterans healthcare and the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children.
The bill has received widespread backing among House and Senate Republicans.
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie are the lone GOP lawmakers believed to be hard “nos” on the government funding bill. Several House Republicans, including Florida Republican Rep. Cory Mills and Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales have indicated they plan to oppose the bill, but Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested they will fall in line before the procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against Massie for pledging to vote “no” on the CR in a post on Truth Social Monday. The stopgap government funding bill contains no Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts and funds government agencies such as USAID that the Trump administration has sought to dismantle.
With the House GOP’s current 218-214 majority, Johnson can afford to lose just one Republican vote assuming all House Democrats are in attendance and oppose the bill. House Democratic leadership have committed to opposing the CR and congressional Republicans’ efforts to keep the government open.
“Here’s the bottom line: if congressional Democrats refuse to support this clean CR, they will be responsible for every troop that misses a paycheck, for every flight delay from reduced staffing at TSA, for every negative consequence that comes from shutting down the government,” Johnson said at the House GOP leadership conference Tuesday.
Once the House passes the CR, attention will turn to the upper chamber where Senate Democrats have largely slammed the CR text, but stopped short of committing to vote “no” on the bill.
Senate Democrats’ decision to dodge how they will vote on the CR could reflect the conference’s fears that they will incur political consequences for voting to shut down the government.
“I’m obviously going to look [at the CR],” Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden told the DCNF. “The Republicans have put us in this horrendous situation. It’s hard to do the blame game for it.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer notably declined to bring bipartisan appropriations bills for fiscal year 2025 that passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee to the floor when he was Senate majority leader during the 118th Congress.
“Let’s see what the House actually passes,” Democratic Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen told the DCNF. “Trump has the White House, and they have both houses of Congress. This would be a Trump shutdown. Nobody wants that. They need to come to the table. Work with us on something that works.”
“Government shutdowns are really bad,” Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly told the DCNF while not committing to vote against the stopgap funding bill. “CRs are bad. This is not the way we should run a government.”
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim repeatedly dodged CNN’s Jake Tapper’s “simple question” Sunday about whether he would vote for the GOP-backed CR to avoid a government shutdown. Kim previously suggested Senate Democrats should use the government funding deadline as leverage to tie the hands of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts.
GOP senators will need at least eight Senate Democrats to vote “yes” on the CR to avert a potential shutdown. Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has suggested he will support the CR, giving the GOP-backed plan at least one Democratic vote.
“I think we’ll be able to put 51-52 on the board, and then we can’t do it alone,” Republican Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told the DCNF. “So if Schumer doesn’t want to support us, then it becomes a Schumer shutdown at this point. We have to have the Democratic support in the Senate.”
“If the Democrats want to shut us down, that’s in their control,” Mullin continued.
Andi Napier and Myles Morell contributed to reporting.
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