The House passed a one-week spending bill Friday morning, 382 to 30, with 207 Republican votes and 175 Democratic votes, meaning the Democrats were necessary to keep this government afloat. Again. That's despite the declaration by Republican leadership that they would have the votes to do it all on their own. After holding the vote open for nearly an hour, they gave up on getting those last 15 Republicans on board and gaveled the vote. Some governing party this is.
It’s significant because it means that House Speaker Paul Ryan—and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—are going to need Democratic votes for the long-term spending bill. As to that, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been flexing his muscle. When McConnell moved Thursday to set the Senate up to essentially automatically pass this one-week funding bill once the House had sent it over, Schumer objected to ensure that negotiations on the longer term bill continued. They did continue, and Schumer is now ready to lift his objection to the one-week bill.
"We’re willing to extend things for a little bit more time in hopes that the same kind of progress can continue to be made," Schumer told reporters. […]
"They made a good deal of progress, but we still have some progress to go. Not all the poison pill riders have been eliminated, some have, a good number have," he said. "But we still have a little bit of a ways to go."
Between this Republican unity failure and the third Zombie Trumpcare fail last night, when Ryan failed to get enough of his members on board to even bring the bill to the floor, it's becoming clear that this is not a governing party. His efforts so far on behalf of popular vote loser Donald Trump seem to be succeeding only in driving deeper wedges in his already fractious party.
Ryan is not going to be able to accomplish anything without Democratic help. Which means he's not going to be able to accomplish his and Trump's most nihilistic goals.