In the Senate’s first big test on avoiding a government shutdown this October, Democrats offered Republicans a glimmer of hope on Tuesday.
The Senate voted 90-8 on a procedural motion to advance a military construction and veterans affairs appropriations bill, with the overwhelming majority of Democrats joining all but one Republican (Sen. Mike Lee) in support of the legislation.
While the bill is the least controversial spending measure lawmakers typically consider every year, the vote was a significant step in the appropriations process. Republicans and Democrats have been fighting over government spending since before President Donald Trump even took office, and Democrats have expressed discomfort with the GOP’s overall spending levels and the lack of an agreement for the Trump administration not to go back on a funding deal via a future rescission bill.
But Democrats went along with the spending legislation anyway — a signal that future bills and deals may actually have a chance.
In the House, government funding requires only a simple majority. House Republicans can provide that on their own, and they have on a couple of spending bills already this year, including a military construction and veterans affairs bill. But in the Senate, government funding is subject to a 60-vote threshold.
Republicans need Democrats to pass bills — and that’s been the question as lawmakers approach a Sept. 30 funding deadline.
For now, Democrats are saying they will support appropriations bills even without assurance that funding measures won’t later be undermined with rescissions, where the administration can revoke congressionally appropriated funds.
But that didn’t deter Republicans from pressing ahead.
“The Senate will begin the appropriations process the right way,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said ahead of the vote on Tuesday. “The right way is on time. The right way is in public. The right way is with bipartisan support. That may sound routine. Yet here in the United States Senate, it hasn’t been routine for a long time.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was generally “hopeful” about the appropriations process, but that he’s still gauging the “appetite level”of Democrats to “actually ensure that we keep the government open.”
Even with the successful vote on Tuesday, Democrats remain the real mystery.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters Monday that he would argue to his Democratic colleagues “that if we want alternatives to reconciliation and rescission, we’ve got to go back as close as we can to the regular order.”
“It’s better to have a bipartisan appropriations process than any of the alternatives,” Durbin said.
But Democrats are concerned that a bipartisan process could turn into a partisan one once lawmakers pass their bills. Without an agreement, the Trump administration could always offer a rescission bill to undo Democratic spending priorities. It’s what happened last week when the House and Senate approved legislation to take back $9 billion of spending without a single Democratic vote.
Still, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted the best path forward for Democrats is a bipartisan appropriations process, though he’s also arguing Republicans aren’t making it easy.
Ahead of the vote on Tuesday, Schumer said the appropriations bill at hand had been crafted in a bipartisan matter, and noted it would still be subject to amendments.
“Democrats want a bipartisan deal,” Schumer said. “We’re working together to get one.”
Tuesday’s vote was theoretically a step toward that, though it’s unlikely lawmakers will have enough time or desire to advance the 11 remaining appropriations bills, leaving a stopgap measure or a larger spending deal as the only feasible alternatives.
There’s currently talk of a yearlong continuing resolution, which would extend current funding levels and likely adjust the spending of just a few items. But Democrats would likely find many reasons to oppose that kind of legislation. And there are plenty of Democratic senators who already seem less than eager to play ball.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement before the military construction bill vote that she could not “in good conscience support this funding bill while the Trump administration illegally withholds funding for programs appropriated by Congress for veterans in need and Republicans unilaterally claw back bipartisan funding that Donald Trump doesn’t like.”
“Congress is a coequal branch of government,” she said. “We swore an oath to the Constitution, not to a king.”
If Democrats take that view, it would be hard to find a spending agreement in September. But Republicans don’t need every Democrat; they just need a handful.
In March, 10 Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to pass a continuing resolution until October. And while the backlash was swift for those Democrats — particularly for Schumer, who voted for the CR — it’s conceivable that some Democrats could get on board with another spending bill.
That is, as long as Republicans work with Democrats on drafting the legislation. The military construction spending bill is usually the easiest appropriations bill to pass (hence why it’s almost always the first one lawmakers tackle). Other bills won’t be nearly as easy, and Republicans almost certainly won’t take Democratic language on a number of issues, including border security funding, social services, health care and the overall funding levels for a number of agencies.
As easy as this military construction spending measure may seem, as bipartisan as the Senate process may have been, other bills will be much tougher and far more partisan.
Only minutes after the Senate voted to advance the military construction bill, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters that this jam on government funding had been the toughest she’d seen as an appropriator since she joined the committee in the early 1990s.
“I’ve negotiated with [Richard] Shelby, I’ve negotiated with [Patrick] Leahy,” she said. “There’s always been that give and take to pass the bills.”