The minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said Wednesday that Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to approve the agreement approved by the Chamber to finance the Government, increasing the alert of a possible closure of the government at the end of the week.
If an agreement does not reach democratic support, the government will close on Friday at midnight.
Two days is a long time in Capitol Hill, so there is still a lot of time for an agreement to arise, but Schumer’s statement certainly heats the closing fears.
Schumer pointed to Republicans’s finger for leaving Democrats out of financing negotiations.
“Financing the government should be a bipartisan effort, but the Republicans chose a partisan route that writes its continuous resolution without any contribution of the Democrats of Congress,” Schumer said on the floor on Wednesday.
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, arrives to talk to journalists while the Republicans work to approve a provisional spending bill that would avoid a partial government closure and keep the federal agencies financed until September, in the Washington Capitol, on March 11, 2025.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Unlike the Chamber, where Republicans can act unilaterally to approve legislation, the Senate needs Democrats to approve a Financing Law.
At least 60 votes are needed for a financing bill to eliminate key procedural votes, called clutch votes, which means that at least seven democrats would be needed to approve any financing bill through the Senate.
Schumer made clear on Wednesday that at this time, Democrats will not provide those votes.
“Republicans do not have votes in the Senate to invoke the clutch in the House of Representatives,” said Schumer.
A view of the Capitol building, March 10, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Images
For several days, the Democrats have been dealing behind the scene about whether to provide the votes required to approve the Financing Law approved by the Republicans of the House of Representatives on Tuesday. On the one hand, many Democrats say that this bill gives President Donald Trump and Elon Musk a unilateral power to continue cutting to the federal government. On the other hand, some Democrats understand that a decision to vote against the bill could probably force an undesirable government to close.
After days of closed doors meetings and interaction with tight lips with the press, Schumer said that the Democrats will advocate for a 30 -day clean stopp bill intended to buy more time for appropriate to complete the financing invoices throughout the year.
“Our Caucus is unified in a clean CR on April 11 that will keep the Government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can approve,” said Schumer.
The fact that this is what the Democrats want does not mean that it is a vote that the Democrats obtain.
They are the minority in the Senate, and have no control over what bills are taken to the Senate floor to vote. There is nothing that Democrats can do to force a vote in the Senate to a 30 -day clean stop, but they can launch and deal with Republicans to obtain a vote about it.
With Schumer saying that the Democrats are not ready to proceed, the Democrats hold the letters. If they do not provide the votes to eliminate this procedural obstacle and reach the bill, things could be still, and a closure could be on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the Democrats of the House of Representatives are urging their colleagues from the Senate to vote not on the Financing Law that were almost unanimously opposed when he went through the camera on Tuesday night.
“The Democrats of the House of Representatives are very clear. We are asking the Senate Democrats to vote ‘no’ in this continuous resolution, which is not clean, and makes cuts in all areas,” said Vice President Ted Lieu, flanked by five other members of the camera leadership at a press conference at the problem conference at the Lansdowne Resort. Lieu’s comments arrived before Schumer pressed for a 30 -day clean stopp bill.
The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, said that the conversations “continue” with Schumer to democratic rank members and archive democratic members about keeping the democratic Caucus against the bill against the bill against the bill.
“The democratic position of the House of Representatives is clear as evidenced by the strong vote of the opposition that we take yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives opposing the draft Law on Republican Expenses of imprudent of Trump-Musk-Johnson,” said Jeffries.
Isabella Murray of ABC News contributed to this report.
