After a White House meeting yesterday with the four congressional leaders that yielded no progress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) says he expects the Senate to begin voting at 5 P.M. today on competing Democratic and Republican proposals to fund the government, but both proposals are expected to fail to advance, putting Washington on the path to a government shutdown that will furlough tens of thousands of federal workers. Democrats will bring up their proposal to fund the government through October 31st, to permanently extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced health insurance premium subsidies and to restore nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. That measure, which needs 60 votes to advance, failed to pass by a vote of 47 to 45 when senators voted on it September 19th and a motion to advance it on Tuesday is expected to fail as well.
Leader Thune will then move to the House-passed continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21st, a straightforward 24-page resolution that Republican leaders are describing as a “clean” stopgap funding measure. That bill failed by a vote of 44 to 48 on September 19th. The motion to advance it on Tuesday almost certainly won’t get 60 votes. Senators may then keep the chamber’s floor open until midnight trading last-minute proposals to avoid a shutdown — proposals that would need consent from all 100 senators to succeed. Leaders Thune and Schumer (D-New York) have already set up another round of procedural votes on Wednesday on their dueling proposals to keep the government open, but senators don’t expect the results of those votes to be any different. Leader Thune said that the Senate will likely be out of session on Thursday to observe the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, but senators expect they will be back in session on Friday and possibly through the weekend to keep voting on proposals to reopen the government. Adding another layer to the shutdown tumult, the House is not expected to reconvene until at least October 7th meaning that unless Senate Democrats make a U-turn and accept the House-passed seven-week CR today, the government would stay shuttered until at least October 7th.
