Title: Senate Votes on Funding Bills Amid Ongoing Shutdown

(WASHINGTON) — The Senate convened on Wednesday, marking the first day of a government shutdown, and began voting on funding bills that had previously failed. The shutdown officially started at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, prompting renewed discussions and blame between party leaders.

On Wednesday morning, the Senate held votes on two government funding proposals. The first vote was a procedural one on the Democrats’ funding plan, which includes health care provisions. This proposal requires 60 votes to pass but is anticipated to fail in the Republican-controlled Senate. The second vote was on a clean, House-backed Republican stop-gap funding bill, which also failed on Tuesday night. During that vote, three Democrats crossed party lines to support the Republican measure, raising speculation about whether more Democrats might join them on Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune criticized Democrats for the shutdown during a press conference. "They have taken the American people hostage," he stated. Thune expressed hope that some Democrats might support the Republican funding bill, saying, "There are others out there, I think who don’t want to shut down the government, but who are being put in a position by their leadership that should make them, ought to make all of them very uncomfortable."

Democratic Senators John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, voted with Republicans on a short-term funding bill aimed at keeping the government open for an additional seven weeks.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also criticized Democrats, stating, "Every single bit of this was entirely avoidable." He urged them to pass the clean continuing resolution (CR) as they did in the House, adding, "They have dragged us into another reckless shutdown to appeal to their far-left base. The longer this goes on, the more pain that will be inflicted."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for negotiations, saying, "We want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can’t do it in their partisan way, where they just say ‘It’s our way or the highway.’" He reiterated that Republicans had failed to secure enough votes to prevent the shutdown.

The Senate is expected to vote on additional matters in the afternoon, around 2 p.m., before breaking for Yom Kippur. The Senate will likely be out on Thursday but is scheduled to return on Friday and continue negotiations over the weekend.