Senate Democrats are raising the threat of another government shutdown in late January as tensions with President Trump escalate over a series of recent maneuvers by the White House that Democrats say need a forceful response from Capitol Hill.
Senate Democrats walked away from a potential deal to fund a broad swath of the federal government, including the departments of Defense, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, which make up roughly two-thirds of the discretionary budget, before Congress adjourned for the Christmas recess.
Democrats cited Trump’s threat to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a leading government-funded center for atmospheric and climate research, as the reason they couldn’t advance a five-bill spending package before Christmas.
Had the legislation passed the Senate this past week, it would have given Congress a good chance of funding up to 85 percent to 90 percent of the federal government through September of next year and taken the threat of another shutdown off the table.
Instead, the shutdown threat remains very much alive, even though Democrats aren’t yet revealing their strategy ahead of the Jan. 30 government funding deadline.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who was involved in negotiations to get the spending package through the Senate, said that Democrats want to preserve their “leverage” by keeping the threat of another shutdown on the table.
“They want some leverage for the end of January,” Hoeven told The Hill, adding that he got the sense that Democrats weren’t ready to pass the funding package, even if funding for the atmospheric and climate center in Colorado didn’t blow up into a major issue.
Senate Democratic progressives aren’t ruling out the possibility that they will attempt to use the next funding deadline to demand major concessions from Trump.
“I’m not going to speculate,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who added that Democrats want to pass the regular appropriations bills but will wait to see what happens over the next several weeks.
A Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk about the likelihood of a shutdown said that passing the five-bill spending package, which stalled in the Senate Thursday, would be critical to avoiding a shutdown.
The failure to advance the measure is a red flag warning that the chances of a shutdown are growing, lawmakers say.
Hellbound and Down 