Senate GOP abandons bipartisan continuing resolution as House passes clean stopgap

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on Saturday that Senate Republicans will deny Democrats the cloture votes needed to advance the chamber’s bipartisan continuing resolution as the House was nearing passage of its clean CR.

Democrats currently control the Senate 50-49, though the absences of Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Tina Smith (D-MN) leave them with a single-seat minority. This means that Republicans have the ability to block the McConnell-approved bipartisan CR, which includes $6 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion in disaster aid.

HOUSE TO PUSH 45-DAY CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON FLOOR THAT EXCLUDES UKRAINE FUNDING

As House Republicans began to push a clean stopgap that would avert a shutdown, their Senate counterparts opted to pull back on their support for their measure.

“It looks like there may be a bipartisan agreement coming from the House,” McConnell told reporters just off the Senate floor. “So I’m fairly confident that most of my members, our members, are going to vote against closure. Not necessarily because they’re opposed to the underlying bill. We’ll see what the House can do on a bipartisan basis and then bring it over to us.”

The move was a reversal for McConnell, who two sources tell the Washington Examiner made an impassioned defense for voting to advance the Senate’s bipartisan CR and continued support for Ukraine to his conference at a meeting before the vote on Saturday.

The minority leader failed to convince the majority of his conference, including members of leadership who support Ukraine assistance, to get on board. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) and Senate GOP Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) were among those who objected.

Barrasso told members he would oppose any CR that includes Ukraine funding but lacks a border security amendment. GOP leadership and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) attempted to negotiate a possible provision to the bill, but talks failed to produce anything concrete.

Prior to the meeting, four GOP senators who back Ukraine aid told the Washington Examiner they would support passing the House’s CR to avoid a government shutdown.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) separately noted that Ukraine funding could be passed through a supplemental spending package, as was initially planned after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reached a deal in May to avert a debt default. That deal included defense spending numbers that Senate Republicans and Democrats derided as woefully inadequate.

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Senate Democrats, meanwhile, remained mum most of Saturday while the House debated its clean CR, which would fund the government for 45 days. None of the members approached by the Washington Examiner would respond to questions about the bill, which passed the House early Saturday evening.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) now plans to vitiate cloture on the CR in response to the Republican reversal, a procedural move that will allow the chamber to move on to the House’s legislation, a source familiar with his plans tells the Washington Examiner.