Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats will not support the House spending bill when it gets to the Senate.
He said the Democrats would support a truly clean 30-day continuing resolution that would allow continued budget negotiation, but would reject the existing House proposal.
From NBC:
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said on the floor, calling for a one-month funding bill that provides more time to negotiate a deal.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass," he said. "I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday."
Sen. Tim Kaine said, “There are not the votes right now to pass it. Democrats had nothing to do with this bill. And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. And so that’s what we are insisting on.”
This seems like the strongest reporting I’ve seen, so far, that there will not be enough votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster of the bill.
Of course, it will fall on the House to offer up such a 30-day continuing resolution and, if not, the chances of a government shutdown seem more likely today.
