The Senate has passed a spending bill to continue funding the government through September, narrowly avoiding a shutdown with a measure endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The six-month continuing resolution passed the Senate on a 54-46 vote just a few hours before the Friday-night deadline. Nine Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King voted to limit debate on the measure, enough to help Senate Republicans overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote no on the bill. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, were the only members of the Democratic caucus to vote yes.
The fate of the measure had remained in limbo up until the vote. Senate Democrats, who have said that the bill would only help Trump and billionaire Elon Musk continue to enact sweeping cuts across the federal government, appeared unified against the legislation up until Thursday night, when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer broke with his party to announce that he would support the bill.
The New York Democrat defended his decision to vote yes in a floor speech Friday, arguing that a shutdown would give Trump more power to continue making sweeping cuts to the federal government.
“Clearly, this is a Hobson’s choice,” Schumer said. “The CR is a bad bill. But as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
With Democrats holding a minority in both chambers of Congress, unified opposition to the stopgap bill was seen as one of the few areas of leverages the party had over the GOP. Schumer’s about-face sparked fierce criticism from House Democrats, some of whom publicly questioned his leadership.
The bill had narrowly passed the House on Tuesday evening as well. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the only Republican to oppose the bill, and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, joined his GOP colleagues to support it.
Golden later posted on X that although the bill was “not perfect,” a shutdown “would introduce even more chaos and uncertainty at a time when our country can ill-afford it.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
