The Senate voted 49 to 48 Wednesday to block a motion to suspend the rules to overcome an objection Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) raised last week against a government funding package.
Senators voted against ending debate on the motion to suspend the upper chamber’s rules, prolonging the impasse over the “minibus” appropriations package funding military construction and the departments of Veterans Affairs (VA), Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Senate Democrats needed 60 votes to advance a motion to suspend the Senate’s rules, which in turn would have needed the support of 67 senators to pass. But they failed to get the 60 votes to bring a suspension of the rules up for direct consideration.
As a result, the so-called minibus spending package Johnson blocked last week remains in limbo.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) now has a choice to make: Either proceed to a narrower bill funding only military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs — which passed the House in July — or negotiate with Johnson.
The Wisconsin Republican floated a potential compromise Tuesday by offering to waive his objection to the package if colleagues agreed to vote on a bill to end government shutdowns.
That bill, sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), would require members of Congress to stay in Washington to complete work on the annual spending bills if they fail to pass them by the Sept. 30 deadline.
It would also implement an automatic continuing resolution on rolling 14-day periods to avoid government shutdowns.
Schumer called the result of the vote “wholly disappointing” and warned it “undermines months of hard work appropriators have done to move appropriations bills through the regular order.”
Johnson caused a ruckus on the Senate floor last week by bringing a minibus appropriations package to a screeching halt.
He invoked Senate Rule XVI to object to a substitute amendment offered by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to add the Agriculture and Transportation/HUD spending bills to a bill funding military construction and the VA, which the House passed in July.
Rule XVI bars senators from expanding the scope of an appropriations bill.
Johnson called for breaking up the minibus to give colleagues more time to scrutinize the legislation.
“The importance of bringing up each bill individually is that it gives us some ability to scrutinize what’s in that particular bill,” Johnson said. “This place is grossly broken.”
He also accused Democrats of following the Senate’s rules selectively, ignoring them when it suits their purposes.
“We have rules until leadership decides they don’t want to have rules. That sounds like regular order, right? he quipped. “So, you’re going to suspend the rules of the Senate so you have regular order.”
Murray urged colleagues Wednesday to vote to keep the spending package on track.
“Last week, an overwhelming 91 senators voted to begin debate on the bipartisan appropriations package, a package of bills which each passed the Appropriations Committee unanimously,” Murray said on the Senate floor.
“But then a few senators decided to object to a run-of-the-mill procedural request threatening to derail our months of hard work, halt a return to order, and prevent the full Senate from having a chance to debate and offer amendments,” she added.
But Murray failed to persuade even Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the vice chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, to vote to advance a motion to suspend the rules.
Collins last week criticized Johnson for derailing the package.
“I’m both surprised and disappointed that the senator from Wisconsin is objecting to this unanimous consent agreement,” Collins said at the time. “Why is the senator from Wisconsin objecting to proceeding to three appropriations bills that were reported unanimously — unanimously each one of them from the Senate Appropriations Committee after a great deal of work?”
Senate Democratic and Republican leadership staff were spotted huddling on the floor at the start of the vote.
Murray said after the vote that she would continue to seek consent to move forward with the appropriations bills.
“While this full package may not be moving forward right now through this process, I will not be stopped,” she said. “I will not stop working to return this process back to regular order and keep things moving.”
“I will keep talking to colleagues about how we get all 12 of our bipartisan spending bills across the finish line here in the Senate,” Murray added.