Senate weathers Dem opposition, advances first government funding bill

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7 days ago

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Senate Republicans and Democrats advanced the first set of spending bills through the upper chamber, despite signals from Democrats that they may block the government funding process.
In the days and weeks leading up to the vote, Senate Democrats warned that Republicans' passage of highly partisan bills, like President Donald Trump's $9 billion clawback package, had eaten away at the trust that girds the appropriations process.
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Still, after meeting behind closed-doors Tuesday afternoon, Democrats ultimately provided enough votes to advance the bill, which would fund military construction and the VA. The vote allows for lawmakers to make amendments and debate the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the meeting that Democrats were still gunning for a bipartisan spending deal, effectively opening the door for his conference to back the spending bill package for now.
"We're working together to get one," Schumer said. "But the bottom line is, Republicans are making it much harder. Rescissions, impoundment, pocket rescissions directly undoes this."
The bill advanced on a 90 to 8 vote, with Schumer and the majority of Senate Democrats joining every Republican to open debate on the bill.
Democrats were largely frustrated with the passage of Trump's rescissions package last week, which slashed funding from foreign aid and public broadcasting, arguing that doing so dissolved trust between the parties when it came to crafting spending bills.
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They argued that reaching an agreement on a funding bill, only to see their priorities later stripped out through rescissions, shattered confidence in their Republican colleagues to stick to their word.
"There's no doubt," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a high-ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Fox News Digital. "I mean, someone does one thing one day and undoes it the next day, that obviously creates issues with trust."
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., opted to call his counterparts' bluff, and put the bill on the floor. Failure to advance the the legislation could have signaled a rocky road ahead for funding the government and beating the Sept. 30 deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.
"Democrats have indicated that they're so upset over a rescissions bill last week, which, by the way, cut one tenth of 1% of all federal spending, that somehow they could use that to shut down the appropriations process and therefore shut down the government," Thune said.
"We think that would be a big mistake, and hopefully they will think better of it and work with us, and we're trying to give them what they've been asking for, [which] is a bipartisan appropriations process," he continued.
Prior to the vote, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, urged passage of the bill through the procedural hurdle, and noted that when she and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the panel, took the helm of the committee, they "committed to working together" on spending bills.
She noted that when Democrats controlled the chamber, lawmakers didn't get the same opportunity to consider spending bills, but acknowledged that it was still a "challenging legislative environment."
"This is a fundamental responsibility of Congress, and I want to express my gratitude to Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Thune, for giving us the opportunity to bring the first of the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills to the Senate floor," she said.
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But, passage of the first bill, and the ensuing amendment process leading to a final vote, does not guarantee that the appropriations process will go smoothly before the deadline hits in the next couple of months.
Congress has not passed spending bills through a process called regular order since the late 1990s and has typically relied on short government funding extensions, known as continuing resolutions, and year-end, colossal spending packages, known as omnibuses, to keep the lights on in Washington.
Disagreements over funding levels between the Senate and House, coupled with lingering questions about whether Schumer will continue to play ball with Republicans, could tee up another showdown around the September deadline.
Schumer said that he would have a confab with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and the top Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Murray, "to discuss the appropriations process in both the House and the Senate in the weeks ahead."
"With so much hard work ahead, the government funding deadline only less than 25 legislative days away, Republicans should be focused on working with us to deliver for American families," he said.
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Sen. John Fetterman, who earlier this year voted with Republicans and a handful of his Democratic colleagues to thwart a partial government shutdown, had a stern message for Senate Democrats that may want to obstruct the government funding process.
"I will never, ever vote to shut our government down," the Pennsylvania Democrat told Fox News Digital. "That's a core responsibility. And now we may not like a lot of these changes to things, and I don't, but I'm saying that's the way that democracy works."
"And now shutting the government down, how could you do that and plunge our country into chaos," he continued.