Democrats locked in fast-track passage of the stopgap funding bill after ceding to Republican demands for three amendment votes. The Senate voted 46-47 to tank an amendment by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would prevent the Biden administration from enforcing vaccine mandates for federal workers and the military. In a 44-49 vote, the chamber rejected a proposal by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to cut off federal cash to schools and child care centers that require kids to be vaccinated against Covid.
“The American people understand that we’re ready to move on. We’re ready to not have government dictating every aspect of our lives,” Lee said on the floor.
A commonly offered “balanced budget” amendment was rejected 47-45, under a 60-vote bar. That proposal by Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) would make it harder for Congress to raise taxes or increase the nation’s borrowing limit.
Several senators departed Thursday afternoon for a security conference overseas, improving the vote count in Democrats’ favor and ensuring the GOP amendments would fail, paving the way to final passage of the short-term funding bill.
Beyond the poor political optics for his party, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was under pressure to ensure the Republican-proposed tweaks were defeated since changing the bill would send it back to the House. It would have been a struggle for the lower chamber to pass it in time to avoid a shutdown, since House lawmakers left last week for a lengthy break.
“The House is out of session. We don’t have time for long protracted debate,” Senate Appropriations Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said on the floor Thursday.
The Vermont Democrat urged senators to “be responsible” by voting against any amendments to the bill, whether proposed by Republicans or Democrats, noting that a shutdown would be inevitable if Congress didn’t send the stopgap funding bill “in its current form” to Biden by the Friday deadline.
Democratic leaders could have avoided the last-minute shutdown drama by calling up the funding bill days ago. The House passed the measure last week, giving the Senate plenty of time to slog through debate on federal funding and proceed to a regular vote before the deadline.
“If we’d been doing this Monday or Tuesday, we’d be done with it now,” Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) noted. “It was available, as you know, last week.”
Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.