WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) moved on Sept. 19 to advance a stopgap government funding bill a day after the House failed to pass a Republican bill aimed at averting a shutdown.
Schumer filed cloture on a bill to use as a vehicle to pass a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution. This would allow the Senate to immediately pass a bill after it had already gone through the chamber’s procedures for passing legislation.
“Both sides are going to spend the next few days trying to figure out the best path remaining for keeping the government open,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on the morning of Sept. 19.
“By filing today, I’m giving the Senate maximum flexibility for preventing a shutdown.”
The Senate majority leader stressed the need for a bipartisan stopgap plan. With funding set to expire on Sept. 30, Congress has less than 12 days to avert a shutdown.
“We‘ll draw up another play, and we’ll come up with a solution,” Johnson said after the Sept. 18 vote. “I’m already talking to colleagues about their many ideas. We have time to fix the situation, and we'll get right to it.”
House Democrats had overwhelmingly rejected the Republican plan because of its inclusion of an election integrity measure, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. They argued that existing laws already bar illegal immigrants from voting and that requiring proof of citizenship to register would disenfranchise Americans who do not have a birth certificate or passport readily available.Johnson said it is a serious problem because even if a tiny percentage of noncitizens vote, it could determine the outcome of a close race.
Former President Donald Trump urged the House to tie a temporary funding patch to the SAVE Act.
“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, wrote in a post on Sept. 18 on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Democrats and some Republicans also want a three-month continuing resolution. This approach would allow the current Congress to hammer out a final bill after the election and get it to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
Johnson and other Republicans prefer a six-month stopgap plan in the hope that Trump wins reelection, giving Republicans more leverage when crafting the full-year bill.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to weigh in on how long to extend funding. He said Schumer and Johnson will ultimately have to work out a final agreement that can pass both chambers.
“One thing you cannot have is a government shutdown,“ McConnell said on Sept. 17 at a weekly press conference. ”It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because, certainly, we’d get the blame.”
There is bipartisan agreement that a shutdown before the election should be avoided.
The House has passed five of the 12 appropriations bills, and the Senate has not passed any.
