The Senate rejected a bill to reopen the government for the eighth time Tuesday, ensuring the shutdown will enter its third week with lawmakers nowhere close to finding a resolution.
Senators voted 49-45 on the GOP’s House-passed continuing resolution, which would fund the government through late November. It needed 60 votes to advance.
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) voted with Republicans, as they have for nearly two weeks. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who had voted in favor of the resolution every other time it has come to the floor was not present on Tuesday.
Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was, once again, the lone GOP “no” vote.
The vote comes as the two sides remain at a stalemate, with neither wanting to give any ground.
“I guess Democrats are not going to be satisfied until military families and government workers are lining up at food banks or visiting payday lenders or simply charging necessary items like milk and bread on their credit cards to be repaid late,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on the floor before the vote, lambasting a report that Democrats are willing to allow the shutdown to go on for “several more weeks.”
“But, hey, while military families and government workers may be deeply stressed, at least life is getting better every day for Senate Democrats,” he continued, referring to a comment Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made last week about Democrats’ political fortunes amid the impasse.
Democrats have repeatedly called for any deal on government funding to include an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.
The GOP, meanwhile, has insisted any talks on those credits can only take place once the government reopens and have publicly pleaded for five additional Democrats to side with them to do so.
That has not happened, though, leading Democrats to argue that the repeated failed votes being held by the majority party should be an impetus for the two sides to hammer out a deal on the subsidies.
“That means, like it or not, the Republican leader needs to work with Democrats in a bipartisan way to reopen the government, just as we did when we passed 13 CR’s [continuing resolutions] when I was majority leader,” Schumer said.
“The ACA premium crisis is not a fix-it-later issue, but rather a fix-it-now issue,” he continued. “Republicans may think they can dig in until the next Ice Age, but a fork in the road is coming their way whether they like it or not.”
While there was little change in the numbers, the vote marked a slight change in GOP tactics. For the first time since the shutdown started, it was held without a companion vote on a Democratic proposal to end the shutdown.
The failed vote also brings the shutdown closer to making history. Not only does it mean the impasse will continue into its third week, but it could become the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history on Friday.
It would eclipse the 2013 shutdown over the ACA that was spearheaded by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
The record is held by the 35-day battle in 2018-19 over President Trump’s want for border wall funding.
