Evening Report — Senate Democrats under pressure over stopgap
The six-month continuing resolution (CR) that squeaked through the House is expected to get a vote in the Senate on Thursday, with the government set to shut down at the end of the week if a funding bill isn't passed.
The GOP has a 53-47 majority in the Senate. With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expected to oppose the bill, Republicans will need eight Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.
Senate Democrats left a meeting Wednesday saying Republicans don't have the votes needed to pass the CR. Democrats are demanding the GOP first allow a vote on a shorter-term 30-day CR that would provide more time for bipartisan negotiations.
'The votes are not there to proceed on their one-sided, Republican-only bill,' Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said.
Several Democrats have already announced they're firmly against the GOP's six-month CR, but pressure has mounted after it passed the House.
'I urge my Senate colleagues to vote against this bill,' Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said in a statement. 'Instead, we should pass a short-term funding extension that allows us to finish the appropriations process and includes measures that defend our constitutionally mandated appropriations power from executive overreach.'
Other Senate Democrats from purple states appear more risk-averse at the moment.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has emerged as a key swing vote, told The Hill's Alexander Bolton that Democrats have no choice but to vote to keep the government open.
'If the Democrats think that they want to burn the village down to save it, that's terrible optics and that's going to have serious impacts for millions and millions of people,' Fetterman said. 'I'm never going to vote for that kind of chaos.'
Others are worried that a shutdown could act as an accelerant for Elon Musk 's efforts to gut the federal workforce.
'We're dealing with people — many of whom I suspect think a shutdown would be a good thing, and they could prolong it and use it to expand the president's power even beyond what they're already considering,' said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who has not revealed how he'll vote on the measure. 'So that's something that has to be considered. This isn't normal.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
4 minutes ago
- New York Post
Kamala Harris' latest Stephen Colbert flop shows exactly what's wrong with both of them
Kamala Harris' visit Thursday to Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' was a fine reminder of why both of them are failures. Mind you, this marked Harris' eighth Late Show appearance — one more illustration of the futility of doing the same thing over and over and somehow expecting different results. What made her think this would help promote her new book? Advertisement The marquee moment was her inability to say who's leading the Democratic Party just now — which was actually simple honesty, since neither Dems nor Republicans have clear leaders these days unless it's a sitting president. But she couldn't explain that simple truth, nor did Colbert show any sign of getting it as he pushed for an answer. Her incoherence was part of another classic Kam performance, full of word salads and non-answers. Advertisement So why did Colbert even bring her on a supposed comedy show? Because he's followed most of the late-night crew down the 'we need to promote liberal politics' toilet, of course — hosting 176 Dem politicians and one Republican since 2022, and hewing one side of the aisle every minute in between. That formula earned him cancellation and may well take out all his peers. It's another puzzle of modern life that so much of the entertainment industry somehow forgot that sanctimoniousness (political or otherwise) is the enemy of humor.
Politico
4 minutes ago
- Politico
The Supreme Court just dropped a hint about its next big Voting Rights Act case
The order came in a case challenging Louisiana's congressional map, which contains two majority-Black districts out of the state's six House seats. The court heard arguments in the case in March and had been expected to rule by June. But on June 27, the justices punted the case into their next term and ordered that it be reargued. Now, Friday's order loosely sketches the terrain on which the justices want further arguments: the claim that the longstanding practice of drawing majority-minority districts under the Voting Rights Acts may be unconstitutional because of its focus on race in drawing district lines. The voters challenging Louisiana's map had already advanced that constitutional claim in the case, but the justices' call for further briefing on the issue suggests they want to consider the claim more fully. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law passed during the civil rights era, generally prohibits race-based discrimination in voting laws and practices. In redistricting, the law is used to protect against racial gerrymandering that would unfairly dilute the voting power of racial and ethnic minority voters. States across the country routinely seek to comply with Section 2 by drawing congressional districts where minority voters can elect their chosen candidates. Louisiana's previous map contained only one majority-Black district, even though Black residents make up about a third of the state's population. After a court struck down that map for likely violating the Voting Rights Act because it diluted the power of Black voters, the state's Republican-controlled legislature drew the new map with two majority-Black districts. A group of voters — who self-identified as non-Black — challenged the new map. That's the case now before the Supreme Court. A ruling overturning the current map could result in Republicans picking up an additional congressional seat in Louisiana. The state's two majority-Black districts are both represented by Democrats, while the other four districts are represented by Republicans.
Associated Press
4 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Not just Big Bird: Things to know about the Center for Public Broadcasting and its funding cuts
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like 'Sesame Street' and 'Finding Your Roots,' said Friday that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding. The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work. The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. It now ends nearly six decades of fueling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters. Here's what to know: Losing funding President Donald Trump signed a bill on July 24 canceling about $1.1 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense, and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS. Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some local public stations in their state. They warned some stations will have to close. The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday reinforced the policy change by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill. How it beganCongress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow described commercial television a 'vast wasteland' and called for programming in the public interest. The corporation doesn't produce programming and it doesn't own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The corporation, PBS, NPR are independent of each other as are local public television and radio stations. Rural stations hit hard Roughly 70% of the corporation's money went directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country. The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it's likely some won't survive. NPR's president estimated as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year. Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children's programming like 'Caillou' and 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood' 24 hours a day. Maine's public media system is looking at a hit of $2.5 million, or about 12% of its budget, for the next fiscal year. The state's rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts. In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22% from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters like tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions. From Big Bird to war documentaries The first episode of 'Sesame Street' aired in 1969. Child viewers, adults and guest stars alike were instantly hooked. Over the decades, characters from Big Bird to Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favorites Entertainer Carol Burnett appeared on that inaugural episode. She told The Associated Press she was a big fan. 'I would have done anything they wanted me to do,' she said. 'I loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.' Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. started 'Finding Your Roots' in 2006 under the title 'African American Lives.' He invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which ethnic group they were from in Africa. Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was renamed 'Faces of America,' which had to be changed again after the name was taken. The show is PBS's most-watched program on linear TV and the most-streamed non-drama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination. Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country. Documentarian Ken Burns, celebrated for creating the documentaries 'The Civil War,' 'Baseball' and 'The Vietnam War', told PBS NewsHour said the corporation accounted for about 20% of his films' budgets. He said he would make it up but projects receiving 50% to 75% of their funding from the organization won't. Influence of shows Children's programing in the 1960s was made up of shows like 'Captain Kangaroo,' ''Romper Room' and the violent skirmishes between 'Tom & Jerry.' 'Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood' mostly taught social skills. 'Sesame Street' was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students aged 2-5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted white and higher income kids were often better prepared. One of the most widely cited studies about the impact of 'Sesame Street' compared households that got the show with those who didn't. It found that the children exposed to 'Sesame Street' were 14% more likely to be enrolled in the correct grade level for their age at middle and high school. Over the years, 'Finding Your Roots' showed Natalie Morales discovering she's related to one of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean and former 'Saturday Night Live' star Andy Samberg finding his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that drag queen RuPaul and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker are cousins, as are actors Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria. 'The two subliminal messages of 'Finding Your Roots,' which are needed more urgently today than ever, is that what has made America great is that we're a nation of immigrants,' Gates told the AP. 'And secondly, at the level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we're 99.99% the same.'
