Congress is in the midst of a shutdown stalemate and lawmakers have left Washington, with only the Senate planning to return before government funding expires at the end of the month.
The House on Friday passed a short-term bill to keep the government open into the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The Senate rejected it hours later, along with an alternative proposal from Democrats that adds more spending on health care and some of their other priorities.
“All it takes is a handful of Democrats to join the Republicans in keeping the government open and funded,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said, referring to the chamber’s 60-vote threshold for overcoming a filibuster.
He plans to hold a vote on the Republican bill again when the chamber returns the week of Sept. 29. The House has adjourned through Oct. 1, putting pressure on the Senate to take that bill as the only option for averting a shutdown.
The measure, known in Capitol Hill jargon as a continuing resolution, or “CR,” extends most current spending levels and policies through Nov. 21, with some typical exceptions to allow higher rates of spending in certain programs, like ones affecting national defense, disaster prevention and response and food assistance.
Republicans said the measure was “clean” and free of partisan riders, which is what Democrats have always supported in the past when stopgap funding measures have been needed.
Senate Democrats expressed hope that Republicans would agree to negotiate over the recess and said they didn’t need to be in Washington to come up with a workable plan.
“You don’t know about email and phones?” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat.
Mr. Thune said Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York has not made any serious attempts to open a negotiation and only requested a meeting with him over “snail mail.”
While he said he is open to a discussion, Mr. Thune made clear Democrats would need to come up with something other than the “liberal wish list” they’re currently pushing.
“I don’t know why you would take hostage a seven-week continuing resolution to try and do a trillion dollars of policy,” he said. “It’s not serious. And they can’t make that argument with a straight face.”
Democrats are unlikely to give in and vote for the GOP plan unless their constituents sway them against their current strategy over the week-long recess for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. They are fighting to add their health care priorities to the must-pass government funding measure, including a permanent extension of pandemic-era expansions of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
“We’ve been asking for months to do it. Why not do it now?” Mr. Schumer said. “People are hurting. Jobs are being lost. People are getting notices that their health care premiums are going up.”
A shutdown of non-essential government services beginning Oct. 1 appears increasingly likely, and Republicans and Democrats have already started blaming each other.
“It is [Democrats’] goal to shut down the government,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican. “The left wing of their party is demanding it, and Chuck Schumer is snake-bit. He’s afraid to do anything that they won’t want him to do.”
Democrats say that Republicans are responsible for a shutdown since they control both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“If Republicans don’t bother working with Democrats, just because Donald Trump said so, it will be a Republican shutdown,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
Democrats stood largely united against the GOP stopgap plan in both the House and Senate, unlike in March when 10 Democrats, including Mr. Schumer, allowed a GOP-crafted spending bill to sail through the chamber.
Democrats inside and outside Congress complained about that move and Mr. Schumer has vowed to fight this go around.
Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania were the only Democrats to vote for the GOP plan this time.
“It’s always wrong to shut our government down,” Mr. Fetterman said.
The House vote was 217-212. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted in opposition.
Mr. Massie argued the stopgap preserves the status quo that’s been in place since the Biden administration, since Republicans have yet to enact full-year spending bills during Mr. Trump’s second term.
Ms. Spartz opposed extending the funding deadline to just before Thanksgiving, worried GOP leaders would use the holiday to pressure members into supporting a bad deal on new spending bills.
Two Republicans also voted against the GOP plan in the Senate, where the 44-48 vote fell short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, had similar concerns to Mr. Massie’s about continuing Biden-era spending.
Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she viewed both the GOP and Democratic stopgap bills as “messaging votes.”
She wants a two-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits added to the legislation, although she opposes Democrats’ proposal for a permanent extension.
Ms. Murkowski also wants at least a short-term funding infusion for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to prevent rural outlets in her state from closing due to the funding rescission Republicans enacted earlier this year. The Democrats’ bill, which she voted against, restores $491 million to the CPB to cover the upcoming fiscal year.
Eight other Republicans did not vote on their party’s bill and seven of those senators missed the vote on the Democratic plan, which also needed 60 votes and failed 47-45.
“The only bill that got a majority of those voting was our bill, not their bill,” Mr. Schumer boasted.
The Democratic bill, in addition to permanently extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, would have repealed recent GOP-enacted cuts to Medicaid that implement work requirements for able-bodied adults and deny coverage to illegal immigrants.
It would also have restored funding to the National Institutes of Health and other programs that the White House Office of Management and Budget has frozen and guarded against the Trump administration impounding congressionally appropriated funds in the future.
