Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, Angus King, Brian Schatz, Chuck Schumer, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Gary Peters, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeanne Shaheen all voted in favor of the CR.
Leading up to the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) indicated that he would support the spending bill from the House GOP, which is backed by President Donald Trump. During a floor speech on the Senate floor yesterday, Schumer labeled the spending package "very bad," but added that having a shutdown has "consequences for America that are much, much worse."
Ahead of the vote, Democrats weighed the possibility of a shutdown. They said that Elon Musk and Trump would take a government shutdown as a opportunity to make deeper cuts to federal government spending, and make more job cuts. Therefore, they decided to keep the government open by voting in favor of the Trump-backed spending bill.
"Musk has already said he wants a shutdown, and public reporting has shown he is already making plans to expedite his destruction of key government programs and services,” Schumer added in his comments. “A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country.”
The comments from Schumer sparked backlash against the New York senator. According to Axios, several lawmakers were calling for a primary challenger to Schumer, pointing to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Dan Goldman (D-NY) as possibilities. Schumer reitereated the points again during a floor speech right before the vote.
Usually, the Senate needs 60 votes to pass a bill outright, so that the filibuster can be avoided. The vote that took place on Friday afternoon was a cloture vote, where 60 votes advances the bill to a simple majority floor vote and ends all debate on the policy measure.
$13 billion in cuts to nondefense spending as well as a $6 billion increase in defense spending are proposed in the bill and it is written to fund the government until the end of the fiscal year.
