WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a six-month funding bill Friday to avert a government shutdown hours ahead of the midnight deadline, sending it to President Donald Trump to sign into law.
The vote was 54-46, with two Democrats joining all but one Republican in support of the measure. Earlier Friday, the bill cleared a key procedural hurdle with the help of 10 Democrats in a 62-38 vote. Sixty votes were needed to defeat a Democratic filibuster.
The votes came after a dramatic 48-hour period during which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., broke with most House and Senate Democrats, announcing he would support moving forward on the bill one day after he declared it didn't have the votes. Schumer ultimately voted no on final passage of the legislation.
The bill, which cleared the House on a party-line vote earlier this week, will keep the government funded through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
Under pressure from his left flank and House Democrats to block the GOP funding measure, Schumer had kept his cards close to the vest about his shutdown strategy throughout the week.
But on Thursday, Schumer said he would vote to advance the bill, giving cover to other Democrats to do the same and significantly lowering the threat of a catastrophic shutdown amid broader economic uncertainty.
Defending his decision in a floor speech Friday, Schumer warned that a shutdown would be far worse than passing the GOP bill. He argued that outcome would give Trump, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) even more power to slash the federal workforce and government services. They could do that, Schumer said, by dictating who are "essential" and non-essential workers in a shutdown.
"Clearly, this is a Hobson’s choice; the CR is a bad bill. But as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option," Schumer said.
"A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. ... It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, state and country," he continued.
In addition to Schumer, nine other Democrats voted to advance the bill: Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Gary Peters of Michigan, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats.
But just two of those Democratic Caucus members — Shaheen and King — voted yes on the underlying funding bill.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to oppose the bill on both the procedural and final votes.
Cortez Masto echoed Schumer, saying a shutdown would place thousands of federal workers on unpaid furlough and hand Trump and Musk more power to gut federal agencies.
“A government shutdown would be devastating for the American people. It would force tens of thousands of Nevada military personnel, union members, law enforcement agents and nurses to work without pay," Cortez Masto said in a statement. "The last government shutdown cost the American economy $11 billion and thousands of hardworking Americans were harmed. I cannot vote for that."
Schumer's move, however, infuriated House Democrats, who were gathered 40 miles away in Leesburg, Virginia, at their annual policy retreat. All but one House Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, had voted against Speaker Mike Johnson's six-month bill on Tuesday.
Ahead of Friday's procedural vote, a group of House Democratic women held a news conference and urged their Senate colleagues to hold the line against the GOP bill.
"The American people literally are shouting from the rooftops that this is a five-alarm emergency and that we cannot hand the keys of the kingdom of this big, beautiful democracy that we love over to somebody who has total disregard, not only for the rule of law, but for American lives,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the House DOGE subcommittee.
Underscoring the schism among Hill Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y, and his leadership team returned to the Capitol on Friday and held a news conference imploring Senate Democrats to reject the GOP funding bill.
They pushed Congress to instead pass a 30-day stopgap funding bill that would buy bipartisan negotiators more time to strike a yearlong appropriations deal on funding the government.
"It’s an unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American spending bill. That’s why House Democrats remain strongly opposed," said Jeffries, flanked by his top lieutenants, Reps. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
"House Democrats are here. We’re ready to pass a four-week spending bill that keeps the government open and will allow the House and the Senate to negotiate an actual agreement that meets the needs of the American people," Jeffries added.
The GOP legislation is not a typical stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution or CR, that simply extends funding at current levels. The 99-page spending bill includes a slight increase in military spending and a $13 billion cut in domestic nondefense spending. It was crafted by GOP leaders, who took input from the White House and excluded Democrats from the process.
On top of that, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and other Democrats lamented that the bill is structured in a way that hands the Trump administration too much flexibility in how to spend certain pots of money. A memo from Murray said the GOP measure creates “slush funds for the Trump administration to reshape spending priorities, eliminate longstanding programs, pick winners and losers.”
The bill would also force the District of Columbia to revert back to its fiscal year 2024 budget levels, cutting local spending by more than $1 billion, which could impact schools, police and and other services.
But senators on Friday night unanimously passed a bill to restore that funding to Washington, D.C., and House leaders are evaluating the legislation.
Speaking on the floor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued that lawmakers have been forced to pass yet another stopgap funding measure because Democrats, who controlled the Senate majority in the last Congress, did not complete the regular appropriations process last year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee had passed and sent to the floor 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills that fund federal agencies and the legislative branch, Thune said, but Schumer never brought them to a vote.
"So today we're trying to finish up last year's work so that we can begin to do this year's work," Thune said Friday. "To be clear, Republicans aren't thrilled about another CR but it is our best option to make sure that last year's failure by Democrats doesn't interfere with this year's appropriations process."
