Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said on Wednesday that Democrats would not provide the necessary votes to pass a stopgap funding bill, dramatically raising the risk of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
Announcing the decision in a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer urged Republicans to consider a shorter funding extension that would give congressional negotiators more time to consider a bipartisan path forward.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort. But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution (CR) without any input, any input, from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said of the Republican-drafted bill, which passed the House on Tuesday.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” he continued, referring to a short-term bill that would temporarily extend federal funding. “We should vote on that.”
To avert a shutdown, Congress must act to extend federal funding by midnight on Friday. Changes – or a new bill entirely – would also need to pass the House before the deadline. The House speaker adjourned the chamber after the bill passed on Tuesday, deliberately sending members home and in effect daring the Senate to reject their bill.
Senate Democrats could still reverse course as the reality of a government shutdown – at a moment when Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk are working to permanently shut down parts of the government – comes into clearer focus. Several Senate Democrats have expressed an openness to voting for the measure, citing their distaste for government shutdowns. “I disagree with many points in the CR, but I will never vote to shut our government down,” John Fetterman, the Democratic senator of Pennsylvania tweeted on Tuesday.
But Democrats are also under mounting pressure from their base to take a stronger stand against Trump and Republicans.
Senate Republicans hold a narrow 53-seat majority, well shy of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the legislation. Senator Rand Paul, a staunch fiscal hawk, has indicated his opposition to the House bill, meaning eight Democrats would likely need to support the bill for it to overcome procedural hurdles to reach a final vote in the chamber.
Democrats have raised concerns about the discretion the measure gives to the Trump administration on spending decisions as it pursues massive cuts to the federal workforce.
From the annual House Democratic caucus retreat in Leesburg, Virginia, on Wednesday, caucus leaders implored their Senate counterparts to follow their lead and unite against the government funding bill.
“I don’t know why anyone would support that bill,” California congressman Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair, told reporters during a press conference earlier on Wednesday.
The 99-page House-passed measure provides a $6bn boost to military budgets while carving out $13bn from non-defense spending – which Democrats say amounts to an assault on critical programs for vulnerable Americans.
Republicans’ “defunding bill is going to wreak havoc on working families”, Katherine Clark, the House Democratic whip, told reporters on Wednesday, assailing cuts that she said could result in domestic violence survivors being evicted and less funding for Alzheimer’s prevention research.
“Whether it’s born out of cruelty, cowardice or corruption are all three, the GOP is hell bent on making families at home unsafe,” she added.
The House voted 217-213 to approve a bill that would keep federal agencies funded through 30 September. All Democrats with the exception of Jared Golden, a conservative from Maine, voted for it.
Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a committed deficit hawk who often bucks his party on fiscal matters, voted no, defying Trump’s demand that all House Republicans support the bill. After the vote, Trump derided Massie as a “GRANDSTANDER” and threatened to oust the seven-term lawmaker from office.
In a joint statement, the House Democratic leaders backed Schumer’s call for a short-term funding extension and urged Republicans to return to Washington to consider it.
