WASHINGTON – Ten Senate Democrats joined with most of their GOP colleagues on Friday to advance a government funding bill, averting a partial shutdown of major federal services beginning at midnight.
The 62-38 vote came amid a brewing trade war between President Donald Trump and international allies and the administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers, and where any additional signs of U.S. political dysfunction would only add to the economic uncertainty.
Just over an hour later, the bill formally passed the Senate with a 54-46 vote, mostly along party lines. Trump is expected to sign it into law before the midnight deadline. Republicans, who control the Senate 53-47, needed Democratic help first to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to bypass the filibuster.
Democrats were stuck between two choices they despised: Vote for a funding bill that reflects Republican spending priorities and will give Trump and his allies more leeway to dismantle the federal government, or shut the government down by denying their vote and risk facing political backlash and blame.
After days of waffling and demanding a shorter-term funding extension that Republicans rejected, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tipped the scales.
He announced Thursday night that he would vote to support the GOP funding bill, despite strong opposition from the Democratic base, arguing that the consequences of a shutdown would be “much, much worse” than the funding extension.
Schumer made the case on the Senate floor that a shutdown would allow the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers to “cherry pick which parts of the government to reopen,” giving them even more power over the federal government they have sought to remake.
“If we go into a shutdown, and I told my caucus this, there’s no offramp,” he told reporters Thursday night. “How you stop a shutdown would be totally determined by the Republican House and Senate, and that is totally determined, because they’ve shown complete blind obeisance, by Trump.”
Ultimately, more than enough Democrats joined Schumer in voting against forcing a shutdown. The bill would fund the government through the end of September, boosting defense spending by $6 billion and reducing non-defense spending by $13 billion.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who voted to advance the bill, said there is “very little” to like about the funding extension.
“But there is even less I like about shutting down the government,” he said. “With Donald Trump and Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal government’s workforce and illegally freezing federal funding, the last thing we need to do is plunge our country into further chaos and turmoil by shutting down the government.”
The vast majority of the Democratic caucus, however, said they could not vote for the legislation that they say formally hands over Congress’ power of the purse to Trump and Musk.
“What Republicans are pushing here is not a continuing resolution. In this case, CR stands for complete resignation,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “That’s what Republicans are doing here, ceding more discretion to two billionaires to decide what does and does not get funded in their states.”
Senators rejected four amendments to the legislation before it was finally passed Friday night, including one to eliminate the Department of Government Efficiency and one to give veterans fired by Musk’s DOGE project their jobs back. Then senators approved the final bill with a simple majority, which Republicans could easily do without Democratic help.
Friday afternoon’s vote was the one that made all the difference: Republicans needed at least eight Democratic senators to join them in order to clear the 60-vote threshold necessary to bypass the filibuster. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against it.
The Senate vote has already received strong backlash from the Democratic base and from other Democratic lawmakers. During a press conference Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., repeatedly declined to say whether he had confidence in Schumer or whether it is time for new Democratic leadership in the upper chamber.
And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., released a statement Friday before the vote urging Senate Democrats reject the funding measure.
“Democratic senators should listen to the women. Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice,” she said. “America has experienced a Trump shutdown before – but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse.”
