On Friday, the GOP-led Senate passed a stopgap bill to stave off a partial government shutdown at the stroke of midnight, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump to sign into law after Democrats gave up their last chance to block it.
The final vote was 54-46 with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Angus King (I-ME) joining with all but one Republican in supporting the measure. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the sole Republican to band with the rest of the Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in opposing the bill.
A simple majority was all that was needed for final passage. There was more drama earlier with a vote to invoke cloture, which required a three-fifths majority — or 60 votes — to prevail. That did happen via a 62-38 vote earlier on Friday after Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he would not vote for a shutdown and stirred up some blowback from members of his own party.
In order to proceed to a final vote, senators had reached a deal in which members would vote on a few amendments from Democrats and Paul. All of them failed to pass. However, the upper chamber did pass a stand-alone bill to protect roughly $1.1 billion in funding for Washington, D.C., that the continuing resolution would remove.
Paul’s offering, which sought to reduce appropriations for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), failed in a 27-37 vote. The Kentucky Republican had said his amendment would codify the cuts made by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort overseen by Elon Musk.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said in a post on X that Paul’s amendment “was well-intentioned, but adopting it would immediately result in a shutdown. Why? It would require the House to re-consider the bill. President Trump doesn’t want a shutdown. We’re moving forward on the DOGE Act and MAGA agenda for FY26.”
The House narrowly passed the 99-page continuing resolution — which provides funding to various federal agencies and programs through September 30 — earlier this week. Trump has already endorsed the funding patch as a means to keep the government running and later get to his domestic agenda priorities in national defense, border security, and tax cuts.
