Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked legislation to pay federal employees who have been working without compensation during the government shutdown, thwarting Republicans’ latest effort to weaken their hand in the federal spending fight.
The defeat was part of a series of failed partisan votes on the 23rd day of the government shutdown that underscored the depth of the prolonged impasse, with neither Republicans nor Democrats showing any indication that they planned to relent and seek an off ramp.
Democrats said they opposed the G.O.P. measure because it would hand President Trump wide latitude to pick and choose which workers receive compensation while the government is shuttered. Republicans, who offered the bill in part to bolster their argument that Democrats are to blame for any pain that results from the shutdown, contended they were merely catering to their restive progressive base.
On a vote of 54 to 45, the measure fell short of the 60 votes it needed to advance. Three Senate Democrats crossed party lines to vote for it: Senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both of Georgia.
Senate Republicans also blocked two alternatives that Democrats attempted to pass by unanimous consent, in which all senators agree to quickly take up and approve a bill. One of them would pay both essential workers and the roughly 700,000 workers who have been furloughed since the shutdown began. A second would pay both categories of workers, and bar Mr. Trump from laying off any additional federal employees.
In a speech ahead of the test vote on his party’s bill, Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader, rhetorically rolled his eyes at Democrats’ opposition. He accused them of blocking the legislation, sponsored by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, because they were “beholden to the Democratic base.”
“We heard they would object to Senator Johnson’s bill because they want everybody to get paid,” an uncharacteristically angry Mr. Thune said. “I have great news: The clean continuing resolution sitting at the desk would pay everybody — everybody!”
During government shutdowns, many workers are furloughed, or required to stop working, because funds are no longer appropriated to pay them. But those who are deemed to provide essential services — including at the Postal Service and the Social Security Administration, as well as law enforcement officers and air traffic controllers — are required to continue working as usual, but without pay.
Senate Democrats argued that paying only essential workers and not those furloughed and forced to stay home without pay would incentivize Mr. Trump to declare employees at agencies he supports as essential, while neglecting those at agencies he views as undermining his political agenda.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said the Republican bill would “hand Donald Trump and his right-hand man, Russell Vought, even more power to decide who gets paid and who gets punished.”
Mr. Trump has made good on his repeated threats to use the shutdown to strip funding from Democratic priorities. Since the government shuttered, his administration has laid off thousands of federal workers and canceled billions of dollars in grants for projects in Democratic-led districts and states. At the same time, he has moved to ensure that military personnel and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue to get paid.
And since the shutdown began, Mr. Trump has signaled he may try to deny furloughed employees automatic back pay, even though the president signed a law during his first term that provided it.
“It gives the president the ability to decide who’s essential and who’s not, and what we see is, he is using this in a political way,” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said. “He would use this discretionary power to punish some and reward others.”
Democrats have withheld their votes for funding the government, demanding that Republicans negotiate an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies that they pushed through during the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans have said they will not negotiate on the matter until the government reopens.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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