Eight Republicans joined every Senate Democrat to block sweeping government funding legislation from advancing Thursday amid ongoing negotiations around a potential offramp to avert a lengthy shutdown of several agencies.
The Senate voted 55-45 against moving forward with a six-bill package that would, among other things, fund the departments of Homeland Security, State and Health and Human Services, as well as the Pentagon.
The measure accounts for more than 75 percent of discretionary spending across the federal government, and programs relying on this money will shutter if Congress cannot reach a deal by 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
The House already passed these bills, then left town for recess. The Senate was on track to clear them without much drama. But then came last weekend’s killing in Minneapolis of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, at the hands of Border Patrol agents.
The incident has fueled new scrutiny of the administration’s immigration enforcement activities, including from some of President Donald Trump’s more reliable GOP allies on Capitol Hill.
Democrats now say they will oppose advancing the funding measure as long as funding for DHS is included — or until Republicans agree to legislation that would put new guardrails around ICE.
