After agreeing to bring up a short-term continuing resolution (CR) earlier in the day that would end the three-day government shutdown, the Senate officially approved it this afternoon. The 17-day measure would keep the government funded through Thursday, February 8. The House is expected to take up the CR later today.
News and updates
Agreement Reached on CR, Government Expected to Re-open
After a weekend and morning of negotiations among a bipartisan group of members, the Senate agreed today to move forward on a three-week continuing resolution (CR), which would fund the government through Thursday, February 8.
Although it does not include a fix to the DACA, which was the cause of the shutdown, a commitment today from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) paved the way for an agreement on the CR. In his remarks, McConnell made a commitment to bring a bipartisan bill that would address the DACA situation to the floor for a vote if the issue is not resolved before the expiration of the next CR, February 8.
The House is expected to take up the CR after it is cleared by the Senate.
Monday Noon
The Senate has scheduled a vote on a CR to reopen the government for Monday at noon. The CR will reportedly be the same as the previous CR, funding CHIP and eliminating the Cadillac tax, but it will not address DACA or Dreamers. To clarify, negotiations remain ongoing, and this is not a deal. Rather, it is the same bill passed by the House that failed to gain cloture in the Senate with a different date — February 9 vs. February 16.
Stay tuned.
Monday, Monday
Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) has scheduled a vote for a clean continuing resolution (CR) that would reopen the government through February 8th. The vote is scheduled for 1 am Monday morning. The move is designed to force Senate Democrats to vote against reopening the government without immigration concessions. Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY) has floated the idea of a short term clean CR to continue negotiation on enacting legislation protecting Dreamers and DACA recipients. Republicans believe the vote will put Democrats in a negative position.
Stay tuned.
Shut Down
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held a procedural vote, known as a cloture vote, to end debate and move on to voting with the the four-week continuing resolution (CR) that the House passed earlier this week. After holding the vote open for over an hour, the measure failed to receive the 60 votes needed end debate.
After cloture was rejected, McConnell announced that he would ask senators to vote on a CR through Feb. 8 in the near term — presumably after the weekend, so terms can be negotiated.
The federal Office of Personnel and Management posted the following status at 1:38 am EST. “Due to a lapse in appropriations, Federal government operations vary by agency. Employees should refer to their home agency for guidance on reporting for duty.”
The federal government is shut down.
All sides think that they are going to win the public opinion in any shutdown fall out.
Stay tuned.