The Senate is canceling its scheduled Monday night vote as the District of Columbia braces for a winter storm that will dump snow and ice on a significant swath of the country — with just days left for the chamber to avert a partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office announced the scheduling change Friday, following days of private speculation among senators who have already received warnings of travel delays from airlines and wondered how and when they would get back to Washington.
The Senate had been expected to vote Monday at 5:30 p.m. Instead, that vote is being moved to Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. “due to the impending weather event that is expected to impact a significant portion of the country,” Thune spokesperson Ryan Wrasse announced on X.
Monday’s vote isn’t related to the looming Jan. 30 government funding cliff, and Wrasse added that “the importance of funding the remaining portions of the government by Friday remains the same.”
But the scheduling change will give senators a truncated timeline for haggling out a deal in person to avoid a shutdown of multiple federal agencies at the end of next week.
The Senate is due to take up six funding bills already advanced by the House, which has left town for its previously-scheduled recess. Even though the six bills have been merged into one package, Senate leaders already needed all 100 members to cut a deal to speed up the process for moving the funding bills through the system in order to meet the Jan. 30 deadline.
If the Senate fails to meet that deadline, a significant portion of the federal government would shutter, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, among others.
Republicans and Democrats privately expect the package to pass the Senate in time to avoid a partial shutdown. That will require it to get support from at least eight Democratic votes, and potentially more, in order to clear a 60-vote hurdle to advance the bill. A growing number of Senate Democrats, however, have vowed to oppose the legislation because it includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid increasing unease over the administration’s immigration enforcement activities.
“We are not living in normal times. The President is acting chaotically and unlawfully and we shouldn’t give his deranged decisions the imprimatur of congressional approval by passing this legislation without significant amendment,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was one of the eight members of the Democratic caucus who helped end last year’s prolonged shutdown, said in a statement Friday.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, separately told reporters Friday he was undecided on how he would vote for the six-bill spending package.
Republicans will also need to reach an agreement with their own members to move forward expeditiously. According to two people granted anonymity to disclose private conversations, a band of conservatives — which includes Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) — is pushing leadership for a vote to remove earmarks from the spending package.
