Government shutdown risk rises as spending bill stalls in Senate

Funding for parts of the government will expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if the Senate doesn’t pass the bill, so a brief partial shutdown would begin then. Government operations could resume once the bill is passed and signed into law by President Biden.

Throughout Friday afternoon, a parade of far-right lawmakers took to the Senate floor to protest the legislation, which they said did not do enough to cut federal spending and lacked policy wins that conservatives on both sides of the Capitol demanded.

Other conservatives proposed amendments or refused to accede to requests from Senate leadership in both parties to cut off time for debate and allow a vote. With enough opposition — and more Republicans were waiting in the wings to speak on the floor — the group could have pushed the government into a brief shutdown.

Many of the main sticking points deal with the border. Some Republicans wanted the bills to include harsh new restrictions on immigration and to beef up U.S.-Mexico border security. Another wanted an amendment to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment of electoral votes and members of the House. Yet another sought to eliminate earmarks from the funding bill.

The Senate agreed to allow votes on four of the amendments before the vote on passage.

“After months of hard work, we have good news for the country: Tonight the Senate has reached an agreement avoiding a shutdown on the first six funding bills,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday on the floor. “We will keep important programs funded for moms and kids, for veterans, for the environment, for housing, and so much more.”

The dynamic was an illustration of the fiscal peril that has dogged this 118th Congress. The House and Senate have passed four stopgap spending bills to dodge government shutdowns since September. Friday’s bill is a spending package that is supposed to fund parts of the government for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Lawmakers are taking it up six months into the fiscal calendar.

“I would urge my colleagues to stop playing with fire here,” Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, pleaded with fellow Republicans on the Senate floor Friday. “The House, controlled by Republicans, passed these bills as a package, these six bills, with a very strong bipartisan vote. With a majority of the majority voting for them. It would be irresponsible for us not to clear these bills and do the fundamental jobs that we have of funding government. What is more important?”

Funding is set to lapse after midnight for the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.

Opponents of that spending, including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), followed each other with hour-long speeches on the Senate floor that jammed business in the upper chamber.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) placed a hold on the legislation because appropriators did not approve funding for a “national security imperative,” his office told Punchbowl News. A spokesperson for Sullivan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fellow Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who is closely aligned with Sullivan, called on lawmakers to approve funds for a icebreaker ship for arctic shipping that she said had important national security implications.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said he would not consent to allow a vote on the bill without a prior vote on his amendment to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment of electoral votes and members of the House — in violation of the Constitution.

“We talked about an offer to maybe do something on this to guarantee a vote later,” Hagerty said, “but that’s now gone away.”