Yesterday the Senate continued their efforts to pass HR 7148, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. The Senate voted on the first cloture vote to “to proceed to consideration of H.R. 7148”, the first of potentially three such votes before the bill would actually be voted upon. That vote, as many people expected, failed by a vote of 45 to 55. All of the Democrats voted Nay as did eight Republican; Thune changed his vote to Nay hen the original vote failed as a procedural move.
The Democrats, including Sen Fetterman (D,OH) who had earlier vowed to vote for the bill, expressing their concerns about recent immigration related actions in Minnesota. The seven Republican opposed the bill on entirely separate, fiscally related grounds. It is not clear that they would have voted against the bill if ten Democrats had voted for the bill, allowing for the 60-votes necessary for passage of the bill.
It appears that a deal has been worked out to approve five of the six spending bills included in HR 7148 and to provide a to eek continuing resolution for the DHS portion of the bill. That would allow the Senate and House to iron out ICE/CBP reform language to be included in the final DHS spending bill.
One last roadblock was thrown up last night. Sen Graham (R,SC) vowed to block unanimous consent to bypass the remaining cloture votes (essentially shutting down consideration in the Senate) over a provision the House included in the bill to disallow Senators from suing DOJ over their wiretaps on Senator’s phones. A deal is still being worked out to overcome that problem. A reconsideration vote for that cloture motion is scheduled for 11:00 am EDT.
If the Senate approves an amended version of HR 7148 today, the government will still technically shut down at midnight since the House is not expected to take up that version of the bill until Monday. While the President has signaled his support for the change, it is not yet clear that the revised bill can pass in the House.
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