Senate blocks bill to avoid shutdown

Government closure appears likely, even if only for a few hours

WASHINGTON — The Senate appeared to reject a short-term spending bill late Friday night to prevent a government shutdown at midnight as Democrats opposed it en masse, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held the vote open in an effort to reach a last-minute deal.

A partial government shutdown was almost certain to take place, even if only for a few hours. Even if the Senate reached a deal, the House would not have had time before midnight to approve whatever changes senators make in the spending bill the House passed Thursday to keep the government funded for four more weeks.

McConnell held the vote open for more than an hour, but opponents — including a handful of Republicans — had already cast more than enough votes to scuttle it. Without a dramatic reversal before midnight, government agencies would ramping down operations Saturday, the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration.

Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson voted in favor of the bill; Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin opposed it.

The vote began less than two hours before government funding was set to expire and came after hours of negotiations that saw lawmakers scrambling in vain to reach a deal.

Most Senate Democrats opposed the House-approved spending bill because it wouldn’t prevent the deportation of about 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Democratic leaders had vowed not to support a funding deal unless it protected the young immigrants.

Trump blasted Democrats in a tweet Friday night, accusing them of wanting

to cause a shutdown to take attention away from the success of the tax cuts recently passed by the GOP-led Congress.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., who is up for re-election in a state Trump won by 42 points, was one of a handful of Democrats who voted for the bill.

Just ahead of the vote he was asked if he thought Democrats were being reasonable: “I think in their minds they’re being reasonable. The same as I think Republicans who are taking a hard-line stance think they’re being reasonable.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., had given negotiations his best shot.

“He’s consistently tried to present options, various courses of action,” Wyden said.

The House passed a spending bill Thursday that would have funded the government through Feb. 16, giving lawmakers more time to work out a compromise on legislation to fund federal agencies through September. It also would have reauthorized for six years the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which helps states pay for health care for low-income kids.

A shutdown likely means that most federal agencies will close and hundreds of thousands of government workers will be furloughed.

Federal workers deemed “essential” would stay on the job and military and homeland security operations would remain up and running.

The Trump administration said that most national park sites would remain open through the weekend, but would begin closing Monday if a funding deal is not reached by then.

Republicans and Democrats were rushing to blame each other Friday.

“Apparently they (Democrats) believe that the issue of illegal immigration is more important than everything else, all of the government services people depend on,” McConnell said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., shot back that it’s the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican president who couldn’t get the job done.

“Republican leadership — led by President Trump —has brought us to the brink of a government shutdown,” Leahy said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said neither party wins when the government shuts down.

“Everyone is convinced they’ll win — but in reality, nobody wins in a government shutdown,” Graham said. “The ‘blame game’ makes for great Washington theater, but doesn’t serve the needs of the nation.”