Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Thursday that he’ll vote to advance a House-passed stopgap funding measure needed by Friday night to avert a partial government shutdown, likely providing cover for other Democrats still on the fence.
The comments from Schumer represent an about-face one day after he declared opposition to the full-year continuing resolution. He had instead demanded a vote on a one-month funding extension that would provide time to finish the detailed fiscal 2025 appropriations bills.
In a floor speech Thursday night after several days of closed-door caucus meetings where Democrats aired their views, Schumer said he came around to the fact that a shutdown would be worse than passing Republicans’ CR.
“I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “Therefore I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
He said Republicans’ “outright rejection” of Democrats’ short-term alternative left him little choice.
At least seven Democratic votes are needed for cloture because Republicans lack the 60 votes required under Senate rules to advance it on their own. Senators and aides expect a final vote on the measure Friday; it wasn’t yet clear if a cloture vote on the bill would be required.
After his floor speech, Schumer said there wasn’t a time agreement yet to wrap up action on the measure, as Democrats were still seeking some amendment votes. One of those could include the monthlong stopgap measure Democrats wrote, Schumer said. While it isn’t expected to succeed, it would at least allow Democrats to go on record backing their preferred alternative.
While negotiations for a time agreement continue, the chamber will go ahead, at least for the moment, with a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the bill at 1:15 p.m. on Friday, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., announced late Thursday.
A simple majority is needed for final passage, which would clear the measure for President Donald Trump’s signature, keeping the government open.
One Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, previously said he’d vote for the House-passed CR. Several others declared their opposition to the measure, labeling it a “blank check” and a “power grab” by the Trump administration to spend money — or “impound” it, preventing funds from flowing to congressionally directed purposes.
But at least a handful of Democrats had remained tight-lipped about how they would vote on the House-passed measure or on the critical procedural vote needed to advance it.
Some who wouldn’t comment on Thursday included Kirsten Gillibrand, Schumer’s fellow New Yorker; Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat retiring after this Congress; Michigan’s Gary Peters, another prospective retiree; and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
In a floor speech a day earlier, Schumer declared that Republicans didn’t have the votes for cloture on the House-passed stopgap bill. After his speech Thursday, Schumer was asked what changed.
“As of yesterday there were not enough votes to pass it,” he said. “I thought I would let people know that, but there were a bunch of undecided votes.”
Schumer declined to speak for his Democratic colleagues on whether enough of them would vote to advance the House bill, which extends funding through September.
He also addressed the omission of language enabling the District of Columbia government to operate under its 2025 budget, which would require a nearly $1.1 billion cut to local funds for the remaining half of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Schumer said he hoped that could be fixed somehow, possibly via stand-alone legislation.
“The Republicans made this mistake,” he said. “But a number of them have said that they realized it was a mistake and I think we can fix it and I’d work with them to fix it.”
‘Hobson’s choice’
The Republican-controlled House passed the six-month CR on a mostly party-line vote, saying they needed to stave off a partial shutdown and there was not enough time left to finish regular appropriations bills.
Trump endorsed the bill and just one House Republican, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, voted no. Perennially endangered Democrat Jared Golden of Maine, representing a Trump district, was the lone Democrat to back the measure.
Progressive groups came out hard in opposition to the measure, arguing Democrats should be willing to accept a shutdown rather than acquiesce.
But Democrats didn’t have the votes to pass the April 11 CR drafted by Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray of Washington and her House counterpart, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.
And it appeared enough of them were prepared to decide a shutdown would be worse than handing Trump a win, with potentially hundreds of thousands more federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay, compounding the mass layoffs and spending cuts already in the works.
Schumer said it wasn’t much of a decision; it was more like a “Hobson’s choice: either proceed with the bill before us or risk Donald Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown,” he said.
“A shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” Schumer said in his floor speech, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency leader and the world’s wealthiest individual.
Schumer ticked off more reasons for avoiding a shutdown. It would give the administration “full authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel ‘non-essential,’ furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired,” he said, giving Trump and Musk “the keys to the city, the state and the country.”
Federal court cases could stall out, Schumer added, eliminating “one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness.”
And a shutdown would create a distraction from plummeting stock prices and consumer confidence, which would be a “gift” to Trump, Schumer said.
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