3 members of Democratic caucus buck Schumer on government funding vote
Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus broke with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) on Tuesday and voted for a House Republican-drafted bill to fund government through Nov. 21, revealing divisions among Democrats about how aggressively to confront the Trump administration.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, joined Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Sen. Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, in voting for the GOP funding proposal.
The measure, which needed 60 votes to advance, failed 55-45.
Cortez Masto said she didn’t want to add to the difficulties of constituents already struggling with high costs and a slowing economy by risking a government shutdown.
“This administration doesn’t care about Nevadans, but I do. That’s why I cannot support a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration,” she said in a statement.
She said a government shutdown would “force tens of thousands of Nevada military personnel, union members, law enforcement agents and military nurses to work without pay” and that it would throw hundreds of union contractors at the Nevada National Security Site and across her state out of work.
King called the vote to keep the government open one of the toughest of his Senate career.
“I just came from the Senate floor where I took one of the most difficult votes I’ve taken since I’ve been in the Senate,” he said in a video statement. “Many feel that this was an opportunity to stand up to Donald Trump, to vote no and to fight back.
“The irony, the paradox is by shutting the government we’re actually giving Trump more power and that was why I voted yes. I did not want to hand Dondald Trump and Russell Vought and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government,” he said, referring to the White House budget director and Trump’s senior domestic policy advisor.
King pointed to Trump’s statement in the Oval Office threatening to do “irreversible” damage to Democratic priorities if the government shuts down.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump told reporters.
Cortez Masto and King voted against the House-passed bill when it first came up for a vote on the Senate floor on Sept. 19.
Fetterman, who was the only Democrat to vote for the GOP funding proposal earlier this month, has repeatedly said he wants to avoid a government shutdown and has warned fellow Democrats about overplaying their hand on a funding stopgap.
The Pennsylvania senator on Tuesday warned that a shutdown would empower President Trump to gut Democratic priorities and enable White House budget director Russell Vought to implement Project 2025, the conservative blueprint to overhaul the federal government.
“The president has a lot of levers he could pull. This is one we could pull, but why would we pull that lever? Because that allows him to pull a lot more levers,” Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill
“I think that would be the ideal for Project 2025,” he added.
Senate Republicans hailed the three defections as a sign that Schumer has a weaker political position heading into a shutdown, which will likely last for several days.
“There are some Democrats who are very unhappy with the situation they’re in,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said at a press conference after the vote.
“We need … another five” Democratic votes to pass the stopgap funding measure, Thune noted. “We need eight total.”
Republicans control 53 Senate seats but need eight Democratic votes to pass the funding bill because Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposes its continuation of Biden-era funding levels.
The continuing resolution needs 60 votes to pass.
Thune said he would schedule additional votes on the House-passed funding measure in the days ahead in the hope of picking up more Democratic votes.
“There are others out there I think who don’t want to shut down the government but are putting them in a position by their leadership … that ought to make all of them very uncomfortable,” he said.