With a midnight Friday deadline looming, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly told Democrats at a meeting Thursday that he would vote to advance a House-passed Republican funding bill and avoid a government shutdown. Democrats are reportedly poised to provide enough votes to allow the GOP continuing resolution to clear a procedural hurdle tomorrow, with just hours to spare before current federal funding expires.
“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said this evening on the Senate floor. “For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR. It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Internal Democratic deliberations reportedly got heated Thursday for the third day in a row, with reporters saying they could hear shouting from behind the closed doors. Democrats are facing a fateful choice. They can allow the Republican funding bill to pass, keeping agencies open through September — but also giving President Donald Trump and Elon Musk wide latitude on spending decisions. Or they can allow federal funding to lapse, with the knowledge that the Trump administration will have significant power to decide what offices stay open.
Schumer and Democrats also face intense pressure from progressives and activists to mount some type of resistance and construct some type of roadblocks to prevent Trump and Musk from bulldozing federal agencies — and, on the other hand, they must contend with fear that a shutdown could backfire on them politically and advance the DOGE effort to reduce the size of government.
Schumer had announced yesterday that Republicans did not have the votes to advance their bill. Republicans need at least eight Democrats to help clear the 60-vote procedural hurdle, though once the bill is brought to a vote, it can pass with a simple majority. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is the only Democrat who has publicly declared support for the House-passed plan.
Democrats have instead called for a short-term funding extension that would allow for the resumption of bipartisan negotiations on individual spending bills — talks in which they could again press to constrain the DOGE cuts.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that it was “time for Democrats to fish or cut bait.” He told reporters he was open to a deal allowing a vote on Democrats’ short-term bill, which would fail, if Democrats allow to move ahead with a vote on the House-passed plan.
Several moderate Democrats who might have provided the necessary votes have announced their opposition to the Republican resolution and the procedural vote required to advance the plan. Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona and Tina Smith of Minnesota announced Thursday that they would oppose both. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado has said the same.
“This bill would wipe out congressional oversight, letting Trump cut and redirect funding however he wants,” Hickenlooper said in a video posted to X. “I’m not going to give President Trump more authority to undermine powers that rightly belong to Congress and to the people of Colorado.”
Kelly and Gallego also invoked Musk in explaining their decisions. “I cannot vote for the Republican plan to give unchecked power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Kelly said in a statement. “I told Arizonans I’d stand up when it was right for our state and our country, and this is one of those moments.”
Other Democrats have also announced they would vote against the Republican resolution, though without stating a position on the procedural vote, which holds more practical significance.
The bottom line: It looks like there won’t be a shutdown. Schumer’s maneuvering was a transparent effort to save face and signal that Democrats are fighting the Trump agenda. His decision avoids what Republicans were going to call a “Schumer shutdown.” That may ease pressure on some moderates, but it’s also bound to leave liberals apoplectic and add to Democratic disputes over the direction of the party as Republicans control all levers of power in Washington. Republicans stuck together, and Democrats got outplayed.