A group of 10 Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Friday voted to advance a Republican-crafted bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, taking a crucial step toward avoiding a government shutdown while infuriating many within their party.
The pivotal procedural vote, which passed 62-38, puts the bill on a glide path to pass the Senate sometime Friday afternoon, despite fierce opposition from many Democrats.
The Democrats who voted to advance the measure also included Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced an agreement shortly before 4:30 p.m. EDT Friday to vote to immediately advance the House-passed funding bill and consider four amendments to the legislation.
One amendment sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) would reinstate veterans who were fired from their federal jobs under Trump. Another, sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), would eliminate the Department of Government Efficiency. A third, sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), would codify the cuts to foreign assistance recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency.
All of the amendments are expected to fail.
Schumer opened the door for some Democratic colleagues to vote to advance the bill by announcing Thursday he would do so to avoid a government shutdown.
He warned a shutdown would give Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk — Trump’s chief budget cutter — tremendous leverage to keep federal employees out of work and to keep federal agencies shuttered for weeks or even months.
“Government funding expires at midnight tonight. As I announced yesterday, I will vote to keep the government open. I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer said on the floor before the vote.
Fetterman, who represents Pennsylvania, a state Trump carried in 2024, said he would vote to advance the House GOP bill because he feared a government shutdown would hurt too many people.
“I’m going to stand on what I happen to believe is the right thing to do,” he said. “What’s the exit plan once we shut the government down? What about the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?”
But Schumer’s decision to vote to advance the bill, which he acknowledged Thursday is a “very bad” bill, has sparked an angry backlash from Democratic progressives and House leaders.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) warned that Schumer would be making a “tremendous mistake.”
After learning of Schumer’s decision, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters “there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal.”
“And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board, the entire party,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said Schumer betrayed House Democrats in districts that Trump won in 2024 who took very tough votes against the bill earlier this week. Only one Democrat voted for the measure in the House.
She said those vulnerable House Democrats took a tough vote “to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, just to see some Senate Democrats” acquiesce to Musk.
“I think it is a huge slap in the face,” she said.
House Democratic leadership had also spent the week pressing Senate Democrats to hold firm and block the bill.
“We’re standing on the side of working families, and that’s why our message to the Senate is also: Stand with us on that side,” House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) said earlier this week. “And we think that our vote gives the Senate the strength and the message that they need to stand up as well.”
Asked repeatedly Friday before the vote whether he had lost confidence in Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) demurred.
“Next question,” he said.
And several vulnerable Democratic senators came out against the bill as well, including Sens. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Jon Ossoff (Ga.), who announced Thursday they would oppose the House bill.
“This bill is bad for Michigan. It makes significant cuts to Michigan’s key infrastructure projects, cuts the [Department of Veterans Affairs] and harms our Great Lakes,” Slotkin said.
Ossoff argued the House bill “irresponsibly fails to impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”
The Democratic activists group Pass the Torch on Friday called for Schumer to resign as Senate minority leader.
But Schumer argued that as bad as Democrats think the House-passed bill is, it is a better option than letting the government shut down at midnight.
Schumer called it a “Hobson’s choice,” in other words a seeming choice where in reality there’s only one viable option.
“The CR is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe that allowing Trump to take more power is a far worse option,” he said Friday morning. “A shutdown would allow [the Department of Government Efficiency] to shift into overdrive.”
Schumer has battled with progressives in his caucus as well, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who have called on colleagues to push for a 30-day clean stopgap funding measure and to oppose the House-passed bill.
Sanders argued on the Senate floor that passing the House GOP-drafted funding bill would worsen the crises facing the nation.
“It makes a bad situation much worse,” he said. “It makes the financial struggles of working people even more difficult than they are today. And it does all of that … to lay the groundwork for massive tax breaks for Elon Musk and the billionaire class.”
Merkley told CNN in an interview that he was “hell no” on the House bill.
He argued that accepting the House GOP bill would only embolden Trump and Musk.
“You don’t stop a bully by handing over your lunch money, and you don’t stop a tyrant by giving him more power,” he said.
Sen. Andy Kim (D), a first-term lawmaker from New Jersey, said he understood why Schumer and other Democratic colleagues voted for the House-passed bill, but he argued that Democrats need to send a message by standing up to Trump and his GOP-allies.
“I understand these concerns” about a government shutdown, he said. “It’s a real no-win situation for America — not just for Democrats in the Senate but for the country. Either way, people are going to get hurt. I understand the concerns about the potential for a shutdown. I don’t want it.
“But I disagree in terms of how this is unfolding,” he said of the expectation the House bill would advance with some Democratic support.
“A shutdown does give a tremendous leeway to [the Office of Management and Budget] to determine how limited resources are prioritized and triaged. There is no one in this administration more dangerous than [OMB Director] Russell Vought right now,” Kim acknowledged.
But he argued that Trump, Musk and Vought “are already taking such actions to shut down the government.”
“I personally believe you need to stand up to that type of action,” he said. “I understand there’s deep uncertainty about what would have happened next but I, for one, was willing to go down that path.”
