The Senate shot down dueling versions of a short-term funding patch Friday before leaving town for a weeklong recess without a plan in place to avoid a partial government shutdown next month.
With lawmakers unable to resolve a partisan standoff over extending expiring health insurance subsidies, Senate leaders agreed to engage in a bit of political theater, allowing each party to get a vote on its own version of a stopgap spending measure, knowing neither would have enough support to pass.
Party leaders agreed to set a 60-vote threshold for each, and the GOP-controlled chamber is divided 53-47.
Republican leaders got a bit of surprise bad news when Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted against the Republican-authored version, which passed the House earlier Friday. Murkowski, who has proposed extending the higher health care subsidies for two years, joined Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as the only two GOP senators to vote “no.”
After the votes, Murkowski explained that she opposed the bill for three reasons.
She wants to see at least a “short-term” fix so the expanded health insurance tax credits don’t completely lapse. Murkowski also wants a short-term patch for cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that were enacted — over her opposition —in July, that are impacting remote communities in her home state.
And Murkowski wants the three full-year fiscal 2026 spending bills that are headed for a House-Senate conference committee — Military Construction-VA, Agriculture and Legislative Branch — attached to the continuing resolution.
“So, I am going to make clear what my message is for a path out of here,” she said.
Republicans actually got fewer votes for their version, which fell short on a 44-48 vote, despite backing from Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. The vote on Democrats’ more expansive stopgap bill, which would permanently extend the expiring health care tax credits, was 47-45; no one on either side crossed the aisle on that vote.
Multiple absences on the GOP side Friday didn’t help their cause, though Republicans didn’t expect to pass their bill in the first place and gave senators a pass to be elsewhere if needed.
The defeat of both bills inched the government closer to a partial shutdown once current funding runs out on Sept. 30.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he plans to reconsider the vote when the Senate comes back after recess. Unless senators return early from the Rosh Hashana recess next week — an option Senate leaders did not rule out Friday — lawmakers would have only two scheduled work days remaining to pass a funding extension before the deadline.
“I think it’s unlikely we’ll be in next week but, obviously, never say never,” Thune said.
House GOP leaders, meanwhile, on Friday canceled their scheduled Sept. 29-30 votes, though they reserved the right to call members back to Washington if the Senate hasn’t passed a stopgap bill yet.
The House-passed measure would extend current spending levels through Nov. 21 to keep the government open. But it would not include an extension for the enhanced tax credits that defray the cost of health coverage purchased on government-run exchanges, which are set to expire at the end of this year.
Democrats included a permanent extension of those subsidies — at an estimated cost of $350 billion over 10 years — in their stopgap bill, which would extend current spending through Oct. 31.
The defeats of both versions set the stage for a tense standoff that could drag on straight through a potential shutdown unless leaders can reach a bipartisan deal. But so far, neither side was ready to blink.
‘Either this or a shutdown’
“We want to sit down and negotiate,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters after the votes. “I think it’s clear, when you look at the votes on the floor … that a negotiation is the only way to avoid a shutdown. We want to do it. So far, they don’t. We hope they change their minds.”
Thune told reporters repeatedly there was no room for negotiating costly health care provisions in a short-term funding extension.
“It looks to me like it’s either this or a shutdown,” he said of the Republican bill.
But the Congressional Budget Office and other independent analysts say by then it will be too late to prevent steep premium increases for millions of individuals with coverage purchased on federal and state exchanges, with insurers already setting rates and open enrollment starting Nov. 1.
“When Republicans say they don’t want to talk about health care — yet — what they are saying is they don’t want to talk about it until a lot of the damage has been done,” Senate Appropriations ranking Democrat Patty Murray of Washington said during debate Friday. “Because premium hikes are already being announced, and people will receive letters in the mail with their new rates next month.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, countered that there was still time to negotiate a compromise on health subsidies because they don’t expire until Dec. 31. “So we do need to act, but that is a significant policy change and the deadline is not Sept. 30,” she said on the floor.
Democratic leaders called again for bipartisan talks to end the stalemate, but Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday there was nothing to discuss until Democrats backed off their health care demands until later in the year.
“They’re not being reasonable at all,” Johnson, R-La., told reporters. “A short-term CR is not a partisan exercise. We could have loaded this up with partisan provisions but we’re not doing that because we’re governing in a responsible manner.”
The Senate roadblock on a stopgap bill came after Johnson scored a modest victory by managing to hold his razor-thin GOP majority together to push the measure through the House on a 217-212 vote.
Two Republicans — Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana — voted against the bill, while one Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, voted for it. Another Democrat from a GOP-leaning district, Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, missed the vote but later said she supported the measure.
The GOP continuing resolution would extend fiscal 2025 spending levels through Nov. 21 though certain programs are subject to “anomalies” to prevent disruptions, such as nutrition assistance for low-income women and young children and aid to victims of natural disasters. It would also temporarily extend numerous expiring health care provisions, including increased funding for community health centers and hospitals.
Member security
Last week’s murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been top of mind for members on both sides of the aisle. The bill would provide $88 million in security funding for executive branch officials, Supreme Court justices and members of Congress, including $30 million to reimburse local police departments for providing protection to members in their home districts.
A few members, including Republicans Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, had petitioned GOP leaders to increase that total. But they ended up voting for the bill after leadership expanded a pilot program for members to hire private security and promised to bolster funding in the fiscal 2026 Legislative Branch appropriations bill that House and Senate appropriators are currently negotiating.
Johnson on Friday floated a potential member security supplemental package to hit the floor in October, though no decisions have been made.
Thune likewise said additional funding was under review. “We’re continuing to work through the options here,” he said of a supplemental bill.
Paul M. Krawzak and Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.
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