Schumer Says GOP Lacks Votes for Spending Bill, Increasing Shutdown Odds

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Wednesday that Republicans do not have enough Democratic votes in the upper chamber to advance the House-passed GOP government funding bill to President Donald Trump’s desk, complicating GOP congressional leaders’ path to averting a shutdown ahead of the March 14 funding deadline.

Schumer is instead pushing for a 30-day continuing resolution, calling Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R., La.) stopgap funding bill to fund the government through September a “partisan path” that cannot clear the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold for passing legislation.

“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 [continuing resolution] that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” Schumer said after a closed-door meeting with his colleagues on Wednesday afternoon, also lambasting Republicans for not getting input from his party when drafting the bill.