The Senate on Wednesday — the first day of a government shutdown — failed to pass bills aimed at funding the government as congressional leaders continue to blame the opposing party for the shutdown.
The Senate held two votes on funding bills that mirrored the failed votes they took on Tuesday, resulting in a government shutdown that took effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
The first was, once again, a procedural vote on the Democrats’ government funding proposal that includes the health care provisions they’ve been seeking. It failed by a vote of 47-53. Once again, every Democrat voted for it and every Republican voted against it.
The second vote in the series was a procedural vote on the clean, House-backed Republican stop-gap funding bill that failed Tuesday night. It failed again Wednesday with a vote of 55-45.
Majority Leader John Thune blamed the Democrats for the shutdown during a press conference Wednesday morning.
“It’s not about who wins or who loses or who gets blamed and all this. It’s about the American people,” Thune said. “They have taken the American people hostage in a way that they think benefits them politically, at the consequence of the cost of what’s going to happen to the American families if this government shutdown continues.”
Thune said that Republicans are now on the hunt for those few additional Democrats to support their clean, short term funding bill.
“There are others out there, I think who don’t want to shut down the government, but who are being put in a position by their leadership that should make them, ought to make all of them very uncomfortable,” Thune said after Tuesday night’s failed votes. “So we’ll see.”
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto and Angus King (an independent who caucuses with Democrats) bucked their party leader Tuesday night and voted with Republicans on a short-term funding bill aimed at keeping the government open for seven more weeks.
Speaker Mike Johnson slammed Democrats during the Wednesday morning press conference.
“Every single bit of this was entirely avoidable,” Johnson said, adding that Democrats should pass the clean CR as they did in the House.
“Democrats in Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far-left base,” Johnson said. “Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them.”
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to come to the negotiating table.
“So, we want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can’t do it in their partisan way, where they just say ‘It’s our way or the highway,’” Schumer reiterated at a news conference following Senate votes Tuesday night.
Schumer rehashed the failed votes on the Senate floor — placing the blame on Republicans who “have failed to get enough votes to avoid a shutdown.”
The Senate is expected to take votes on other matters in the afternoon, around 2 p.m., and then they’re expected to depart for Yom Kippur. The Senate will likely be out on Thursday, but return on Friday and into the weekend as negotiations continue.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
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