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Dec. 21, 2018 / 7:29 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 21, 2018 / 11:40 PM GMT
By Rebecca Shabad
WASHINGTON — After last-minute talks, the Senate voted Friday to open debate on a temporary funding bill — a move that left an open channel with the White House for negotiations over government funding, just hours ahead of a possible partial government shutdown.
A vote to proceed to a government funding bill that included $5 billion in border wall funding that had been held open for more than five hours ended just before 6 p.m. when Vice President Mike Pence broke a 47-47 tie vote.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the chamber voted to proceed “in order to preserve maximum flexibility for productive conversation to continue between the White House and our Democratic colleagues.”
“I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both houses of congress and receive the president’s signature,” McConnell said in remarks on the floor after the vote was closed. “When an agreement is reached, it will receive a vote here on the Senate floor.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., countered that Democrats had already offered three proposals to keep the government funded, including one that passed the upper chamber on Wednesday.
“We are willing to continue discussions on those proposals,” with the White House and other congressional leaders, he said.
The bill passed by the House Thursday night with $5 billion in wall funding would not make it through the Senate because it requires 60 votes to advance to final passage, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., pointed out.
“There is no path forward for the House bill,” Flake said. “The only path forward is to a bill that has an agreement between the president and both houses of Congress. And the next time we vote will be on the agreement, not another test vote.”
The development about six hours before the midnight deadline to prevent a shutdown followed talks late Friday afternoon at the Capitol, as Pence and top White House officials moved back and forth between the House and Senate.
Pence, as well as incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner met first with Schumer on Capitol Hill, and then with Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other key Republicans.
Earlier Friday, Trump said at a signing ceremony of a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill at the White House that “chances are probably very good” for a shutdown.
“It’s on the Democrats. It’s a Democratic shutdown,” Trump said. “Now it’s up to the Democrats. We’re prepared for a very long shutdown.”
On Friday morning, Trump had also called again on McConnell to invoke the nuclear option and kill the Senate rule that effectively requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass appropriations bills — a demand that McConnell has dismissed numerous times.
Ahead of the vote, Schumer there wasn’t enough Senate support “for an expensive, taxpayer-funded border wall.”
“President Trump, you will not get your wall,” he said on the Senate floor Friday. “Abandon your shutdown strategy. You’re not getting your wall today, next week or on Jan 3.”
Frank Thorp V, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Marianna Sotomayor, Kasie Hunt and Liz Johnstone contributed.