Senate to move forward on House-passed spending measure to avert government shutdown

The Senate is moving forward on pushing the House-passed continuing resolution to keep the government open through its chamber before the Oct. 1 deadline.

A Democratic aide told the Washington Examiner that the Senate is currently hot-lining the bill in order to set up a vote “as soon as possible.” Democrats were forced to decide whether to proceed with the bill, which includes disaster relief but excludes Ukraine aid, after Senate Republicans rallied around the House measure on Saturday afternoon.

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The federal government runs out of money on Sunday, meaning the Senate now has just hours to pass the House CR, which would keep the government open an additional 45 days.

The Senate initially got behind a bipartisan CR that included $6 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion in disaster relief as the House repeatedly failed to pass spending bills. 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.

Democrats currently control the Senate 50-49, though the absence of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) left them with a split chamber. This gave Republicans the ability to block the leadership-approved bipartisan CR, which includes $6 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion in disaster aid.

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

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.

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.

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The Democratic aide suggested that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) “caved” with the version of the CR that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) accepted on Saturday. They noted that, “McCarthy did what Schumer has been saying from the beginning,” that a “bipartisan bill is the only way to avoid a shutdown.”

When asked about how long it would take for the Senate to pass the legislation after a Saturday evening meeting where the Senate Democratic Conference got behind the House CR, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told the Washington Examiner to expect a vote within the next hour or two. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), meanwhile, pushed back on the timeline, suggesting that the bill could not reach President Joe Biden’s desk until Sunday.