Democrats block bill to end government shutdown for 11th time

The Senate on Monday voted against reopening the federal government for the 11th time, pushing the shutdown to the three-week mark with both sides at loggerheads and unable to break the impasse.

The chamber voted 50-43 on the House-passed continuing resolution to fund the government through late November. It needed 60 votes to pass.

Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine) once again crossed party lines and sided with Republicans. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who had previously voted in favor of the measure, did not vote on Monday.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was the lone Senate GOP “no” vote.

The tally came days after the “No Kings” rallies in Washington and across the country, with Republicans hopeful that a deal could come together with those events in the rearview mirror.

However, there remain precious few signs that the stalemate will dissolve in the near term, likely ensuring that it will extend into a fourth week and potentially into November. 

In remarks on the floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Democratic position “remains the same.”

“We enter another week of Donald Trump’s government shutdown, and Republicans seem happy not to work, happy not to negotiate, and happy to let health care premiums spike for over 20 million working- and middle-class Americans,” Schumer said. 

“Our country is staring down the barrel of a health care catastrophe, and Republicans will spend this week either vacationing or holding pep rallies at the White House,” Schumer said, referring to the House staying out of session and President Trump’s planned luncheon with the Senate GOP. “Government workers must work without getting paid, but House Republicans get paid without working." 

The dispute has centered on a Democratic insistence for action to extend the expiring enhanced health care subsidies as a condition for reopening the government, with Republicans unwilling and unable to make any such promises.

Top Republicans have maintained that no conversation can happen on the tax credits until the shutdown ends. 

“It is truly amazing how a program Democrats created and tax credits that they chose to sunset have now become the Republicans’ crisis,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in floor remarks. “Republicans, in fact, never had anything to do with it."

“Democrats created ObamaCare — alone. They implemented the enhanced tax credits — alone. And they chose a sunset date for those tax credits — alone,” he continued. “Democrats are solely — solely — responsible for the ObamaCare tax credit cliff, and yet they’re trying to pin this disaster on Republicans while at the very same time they’re asking Republicans to bail them out."

“It’s really kind of ironic,” he added.

The Senate is expected to next vote on the stopgap funding bill on Wednesday.