CONGRESS AVERTS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, BUT ACTION CAUSES DIVISION WITHIN POLITICAL PARTIES
Stopgap funding measure signed by President Trump; California’s Senators voted no
By G. A. McNeeley
March 18 2025 (Washington D.C.) — Congress avoided a government shutdown on March 14, just a few hours before the funding deadline. The stopgap measure to fund the government until September 30 was signed by President Donald Trump on Saturday.
The stopgap would fund government operations through the remainder of this fiscal year, but it would also slash non-defense funding by roughly $13 billion and increase defense spending by about $6 billion over current budgets (including billions for deportations, veterans’ health care and the military).
Many Democrats, including California’s Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, opposed the measure due to the non-defense cuts and because Republicans refused to include language in the bill putting guardrails on Trump and Elon Musk’s ability to continue dismantling the federal bureaucracy unchecked. The Democrats also advocated for a shorter, four-week stopgap to keep the government running on current funding levels in an effort to buy more time for appropriators to strike a deal on a bipartisan funding package. Republican leadership interest in those negotiations diminished weeks ago.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked filibuster
Senate Democrats came under intense pressure to oppose the Trump-backed bill. Now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and nine others, are facing backlash after they helped clear a path for its passage by refusing to support a filibuster to block the budget bill.
Lawmakers raced towards a shutdown that would’ve had far-reaching consequences across the federal government, highlighting the struggle Democrats face, trying to counter Trump and the Republican control on power in Washington.
Schumer and nine other Democrats crossed the aisle to advance the budget in a key procedural vote. The legislation only required a simple majority in the Senate chamber for final passage, and all but two of those ten ultimately voted no on the budget bill.
Schumer argued his party only had bad options. “I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer told CNN, in defense of his vote. “Clearly, this is a Hobson's choice. The CR (continuing resolution) is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Since Congress has not approved appropriations for any federal departments, all would be affected. Every agency has its own set of plans for a shutdown. Those plans include how many employees would be laid-off, which employees are considered essential and would work without pay, how long it would take to wind down operations in the hours before a shutdown and which activities would come to a halt. Those plans can vary from shutdown to shutdown.
The impact of a shutdown differs each time, and it’s unclear how agencies would handle it now, especially since Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government has wreaked havoc on their operations and workforces.
The Division Among Party Members
Trump praised Schumer for saying he would support the measure, telling reporters after the vote, “I appreciate Senator Schumer, and I think he did the right thing, really. I’m very impressed by that.”
Many Senate Democrats and House Democrats saw the vote as a surrender in the party’s first real leverage point in Trump’s second term.
The initial vote had been closely watched by Democrats across the country, who saw it as a test of their party leaders’ willingness to fight Trump.
Ultimately, the Senate voted 54-46 to approve the stopgap bill for government funding through September 30. The vote was mostly party line, though Senator Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire Democrat) and Angus King (Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats) voted in favor of the bill, while Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky (Republican) opposed it.
“Once I had voted for cloture, it was an opportunity to pass the bill, and I thought it was more honest to vote for it,” Shaheen told CNN. “I thought, much as I didn’t like the CR, I thought a government shutdown would be worse and would give Trump and Elon Musk and the DOGE operation more of an opportunity to fire people, to shut down agencies and to close the work of the government.”
At the urging of Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voters had been flooding senators’ offices with calls urging them to block the bill and take on Trump for his dismantling of the federal government. Many Democrats believe that Schumer failed that test.
Schumer has faced criticism, but no senators have publicly said they would challenge his leadership.
House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were against the bill, but lost by one vote from one of their members. It was not enough to sink the bill, which passed the House on March 11th.
Jeffries would not answer when asked whether he had lost confidence in Schumer, with whom he diverged on the funding issue.
Senate Democrats are now grappling with how to move forward as a caucus after the government funding bill split their party.
Schumer told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he “always knew there would be disagreements,” but maintained that a “government shutdown would be far worse” than voting for the GOP-led measure.
“My job as leader is to lead the party and if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it, I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there would be some disagreements. That’s how it always is,” he added.
Schumer also defended his leadership position, saying, “My caucus and I are in sync.”
New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich would not say whether he thought the party needed a new leader, telling reporters, “That’s a conversation for inside the caucus. I’m not going to debate that out here.”
Virginia Senator Mark Warner said he has “faith in Chuck Schumer,” but acknowledged that the caucus had a “choppy week.”
“I voted no on the CR. I heard that overwhelmingly from folks, and again, recognizing I got tons of federal workers. But I have total respect for the folks who reached another conclusion, and the idea that they would have had a shutdown that would have put us into the abyss with, unfortunately, parts of this administration, doesn’t follow the law,” he told CNN.
“I think the Democrats need to have a pro-growth agenda that recognizes fairness, and that is, frankly, not the debate though, that we just took place. That we just took place, it was two awful choices,” he added.
What California Politicians Have To Say
California Senator Alex Padilla issued the following statement after the House of Representatives narrowly passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through September 30th:
“The House Republican spending bill completely shortchanges California and other disaster-stricken states on disaster relief. We cannot leave communities in our states behind as they continue to rebuild and recover from devastating recent disasters. Despite the House vote today, I still believe the best path forward is for Congress to instead pass a 30-day funding bill to keep the government open while we continue negotiations for the remainder of the fiscal year in a way that properly funds disaster relief and doesn’t cede more power to Trump and Elon Musk.”
California Senator Adam Schiff explained why he’s “voting no, and why this needs to be defeated,” in a press release.
Schiff said it would embolden Trump to continue tearing down government services, close Social Security offices, illegally withhold funds, illegally seize authority from Congress, lay off veterans, and cut health care and Medicaid.
“I'm not willing to continue to see Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their minions continue to arrogate to themselves the power to fire anyone in the federal government,” Schiff said.
Schiff also addressed those who think that a shutdown of the government would be worse.
“If the government shuts down, let's be clear, they control everything. They control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House, they control the Supreme Court. If they shut down the government, it is on them. That is their decision,” Schiff said.
“I am desperately worried about the direction of this country. We are seeing an executive run away with authority he does not have, merely because he claims to have it, merely because our courts have often acted too slowly to stop him,” he added.
In addition to Padilla and Schiff, Democratic House Representatives Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin, Scott Peters, and Jacob Vargas all voted against it, while Republican House Representative Darrel Issa voted in favor of it.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/politics/government-funding-bill-senate-shutdown/index.html
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/13/politics/deadline-federal-government-shutdown-congress
https://schiffnotes.substack.com/p/my-vote-on-the-gop-spending-bill
