Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-sponsored invoice Thursday to pay active-duty members of the army and different important federal workers who’ve been required to work throughout the federal government shutdown.
Democrats blocked the Shutdown Equity Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), in a principally party-line 54-45 vote. It wanted 60 votes to advance.
Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) crossed get together strains to vote in favor of the measure.
Fetterman — together with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine) — has additionally been voting with Republicans to reopen the federal government. The 2 Georgia Democrats have been voting in opposition to that stopgap funding invoice.
The laws would pay service members in addition to workers who’re decided by company heads to be “excepted” from the shutdown or who’re “performing emergency work.”
Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) stated that will have included greater than 300 congressional workers, together with U.S. Capitol Police, who labored in a single day Tuesday and Wednesday morning to maintain the Senate flooring open whereas Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) spoke for 22 hours and 37 minutes in protest of President Trump.
Johnson’s invoice would even have assured pay for federal staff who’re on responsibility all through the shutdown, together with air site visitors controllers, Transportation Safety Administration brokers, park rangers, federal legislation enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol brokers, Thune stated.
Senate Democratic Chief Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) blasted the Republican invoice as a “ruse” that will give White Home funds director Russell Vought broad authority to choose and select which federal departments and companies to reopen and which to maintain closed.
“It’s nothing more than another tool for Trump to hurt federal workers and American families and to keep this shutdown going for as long as he wants,” Schumer stated on the ground. “We will not give Donald Trump a license to play politics with people’s livelihoods. That’s why we oppose this.”
Johnson, the invoice’s sponsor, accused Democrats of mischaracterizing his invoice, asserting that federal legislation states clearly what federal workers are important throughout a shutdown.
The vote was the newest effort by Republicans to pressure Democrats to take robust votes in the course of the shutdown, which has dragged for 23 days.
Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Gary Peters (Mich.), in the meantime, have launched an alternate invoice to pay all federal workers and contractors in the course of the shutdown.
Van Hollen’s True Shutdown Equity Act would pay all federal workers in the course of the shutdown, together with army service members, and forestall the Trump administration from making an attempt “reductions in force” or mass layoffs.
Van Hollen requested for unanimous consent to approve his invoice on the Senate flooring Thursday, however Johnson objected.
