Senate Democrats face major dilemma: help GOP pass funding bill or trigger shutdown

Senate Democrats are facing a dilemma as the clock ticks down to a government shutdown at midnight on Friday: help Republicans pass a bill to avoid a shutdown or block the bill and be blamed for triggering one.

After the House approved a bill funding agencies through September largely along party lines Senate Democrats have been debating, discussing and wavering about their next move. The party’s base is demanding they fight President Trump and Elon Musk’s rapid fire cuts to the federal workforce and block the funding bill that was crafted without Democratic input.

But some worry about the unpredictable impact and length of a shutdown, and what the plan would be to get out of one. Also weighing on Democrats hoping to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress is 2026 is the political impact. Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, but Trump has a large microphone and Senate Democrats will end up determining what happens.

On Wednesday Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the GOP doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to get around a filibuster on the bill known as the continuing resolution (CR) that passed the House. 

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “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.”

Senate Republicans hold a 53 seat majority, but likely need eight Democratic votes in the GOP-led chamber to overcome a filibuster in the GOP-led chamber to pass the measure, known as a continuing resolution.

Senate Republicans will see at least one defection because Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul said last week he would vote no on the plan, unless it could codify cuts led by Elon Musk, the billionaire and advisor to President Trump.

So far only one Senate Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has said publicly he would vote with the GOP to approve the CR. Fetterman said he wants to avoid a shutdown: “that’s chaos and I will never vote for chaos.”

Schumer instead called for a four week stopgap measure on Wednesday, which would keep agencies funded at current levels through April 11 as both parties negotiate on the annual spending bills.

This alternative gives Democrats the chance to say they are working to avoid any lapse in government funding.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday he was open to giving Democrats an opportunity to vote on their proposal, but he didn’t expect it to pass. He said he had not heard any offer from Democrats yet.

“If they want to vote on that in exchange for getting us the votes to pass to September 30, I think we’re open to that. But as you all know, the House is gone, so whatever happens is going to have to be, I think, the final action here,” Thune said. 

In the hours that followed Schumer’s push for the short term bill, two Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2026, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va, and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. said they would vote no on the GOP-backed measure. And although Schumer signaled his caucus was united, not all Democrats agree.

But Fetterman argued Schumer’s plan doesn’t have a chance.

“Shut the government down, plunge the country into chaos, risk a recession or Exchange cloture for a 30 day CR that 100% fails,” Fetterman said Thursday on social media platform X. “The House GOP CR will then pass the Senate because it only needs 51 votes. Total theater is neither honest with constituents nor a winning argument.”

Several Senate Democrats have yet to say how they’d like to vote on the plan.

“We have to make determinations how this affects Arizona,” Freshman Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Az., told reporters ahead of Schumer’s announcement.

Many Democrats described the choice facing them it as a “pick your poison” moment with no easy answer. Helping Republicans pass the CR avoids a shutdown and issues they argue impact defense and other programs that are relying on increases instead of flat funding. But blocking it opens them up to the uncertainty of what the Trump administration would decide about who qualifies as essential workers and what other cuts they could impose during a shutdown.

Sen. Mark Kelly told reporters he was “weighing the badness of each option.”

This, as several Senate Democrats said early on they would vote no on the plan. That includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

“I don’t know how anybody can vote for this,” she told reporters Wednesday.

House Democrats remained largely united on opposing the plan, and many took to social media to urge their Senate Democratic counterparts to do the same.

Messaging war already in full swing

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden who says he opposes the CR told NPR that the Trump administration is “engaging in what I call colossal lawlessness-basically upturning so many programs that are vital for veterans, for seniors and for kids. And I’m not going to have any part in that.” He pointed to the 4 week bill as the best option. 

The number two Senate GOP Leader, John Barrasso told reporters the plan is to vote on the House passed CR on Friday. And he signaled the GOP message arguing Democrats would be the ones to pay a price.

“So to get into this shutdown they are going to cause it, to get out of the shutdown they are going to have to come up with a solution that they are going to be responsible for  – and all the pain that results of the Democrats’ actions,” Barrasso said.