Sept. 19 (UPI) — The Senate will advance a bipartisan stopgap government funding bill on Thursday after efforts to pass a similar measure in the Republican-controlled House fell apart, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer, D-N.Y., said he will “file cloture on a legislative vehicle that will enable us to prevent a Trump shutdown” in the wake of a House vote on Wednesday rejecting a six-month GOP government funding plan proposed by a Speaker Mike Johnson.
That bill was defeated by a coalition of Democrats and 14 Republicans after GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump demanded Johnson attach a “poison pill” measure requiring voters provide proof of citizenship onto a continuing resolution enabling the government to continue functioning past the end of this month.
Schumer placed the blame squarely on Johnson for the failure of the House vote, citing his allegiance to the former president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and anti-immigrant invective as the November election approaches.
The House measure included the “SAVE Act” calling for proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Johnson allowed it after Trump urged Republicans on his Truth Social platform to let the government shut down if Democrats didn’t agree to it.
On Thursday, Schumer said the House speaker “must choose: either keep paying blind obeisance to Donald Trump and his ridiculous claims, or work with both parties to spare the American people from a Republican shutdown.”
Schumer accused the House GOP leadership of avoiding “the bipartisan work everyone knows is required for avoiding a shutdown” and instead wasting “two weeks listening to Donald Trump’s ridiculous claims on the campaign trail. Now that their efforts have failed, House Republicans don’t seem to have any plan for actually keeping the government open.
“So, the Senate will step in,” the majority leader said.
Schumer said senators of both parties “are ready to work this process the right way: Democrats talking to Republicans, both sides at the negotiating table, finding a way to keep the government open without partisan hoopla.”
In a final dig at Trump, he added, “Democrats and Americans don’t want a Trump shutdown. I dare say most Republicans — at least in this chamber — don’t want to see a Trump shutdown. And the American people certainly don’t want their elected representatives in Washington creating a shutdown for the sake of Donald Trump’s claims, when it’s clear he doesn’t even know how the legislative process works.”
