Government Shutdown Looms as House Moves Toward Budget Vote
Mr. Ryan said he had spoken to Mr. Trump earlier in the morning and
that the president “fully supports passing what we’re bringing to the floor today.”
Even if the House manages to pass the bill, the Senate would still need to give its approval in order to avert a shutdown early Saturday morning, and Democrats would be needed for passage given
that the spending bill requires 60 votes in the Senate.
Mr. Tester, who is up for re-election this year in a state
that Mr. Trump won by 20 percentage points, said that a stopgap bill that included CHIP funding but left other issues unresolved was “not what we’re looking for.”
Democrats have been under heavy pressure to oppose any spending bill
that does not protect the young immigrants, known as Dreamers, who are now shielded from deportation from an Obama-era initiative, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that Mr. Trump moved in September to end
Republican leaders had spent Wednesday pressuring Democrats to vote for the spending bill, arguing
that opposing it would effectively block a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which they had included in the spending bill.
WASHINGTON — Congress stumbled toward a government shutdown this weekend as the House planned a showdown
vote Thursday evening on a stopgap spending bill that Senate Democrats appear poised to block.
For the stopgap bill to succeed in the Senate, Republican leaders need at least nine Democrats
— probably more, given several expected Republican defections — to support it.
