If Congress can’t pass some sort
of government funding
bill by September 30,
then the federal government will enter into a shutdown for the
first time since 2019. And thanks to the filibuster, which requires
most bills to get 60 votes in the Senate in order to pass, Senate
Democrats will have to play a role in any funding deal that makes
it to the president’s desk.
New Jersey’s two senators, Cory
Booker and Andy Kim, are saying that their votes can’t be taken for
granted to prevent a shutdown. If Republicans put forward a bill
that doesn’t involve any input from Democrats and would, from their
perspective, harm New Jersey and its residents, both senators
signaled that they’re willing to use their power to stop
it.
“I am not going to support a
budget that hurts New Jerseyans, that hurts people more than
they’re hurting already,” Booker told reporters
during a gaggle that he later
posted online. “Donald Trump and Republicans control the House, the
Senate, and the White House. They have a responsibility to put
forward a budget that can get through the United States
Senate.”
If Trump tries to “bully” the
Senate into passing a partisan bill, he added, “I’m going to block
it and I’m going to fight to prevent him from doing
that.”
Kim told the New Jersey Globe
today that he feels similarly: “Let’s just say there’s no way I’m
going to vote for something that’s purely partisan on the
Republican side, and let that go through,” he said. “I’m prepared
to do what I did the last time around.”
The “last time around” refers to
a similar fight in March, when Republicans pushed through a
controversial year-long stopgap bill and essentially dared Senate
Democrats to block it. Booker and Kim both voted against the
bill alongside most of
their fellow Democrats, but a critical handful Democratic senators
– including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – supported it and
averted a shutdown.
Republicans are discussing the
possibility of another stopgap bill, and House Republicans have
also been working through a series of strongly partisan
appropriations bills that have drawn fierce opposition from
Democrats. But some Republicans in the Senate have been
more
amenable to a
traditional bipartisan funding process, in
defiance of the Trump
administration, and Kim said that’s the outcome he still hopes
prevails.
“If the Republicans are going to
refuse to do bipartisanship, that’s going to be a real problem
here,” Kim said. “They’re the ones that are breaking precedent if
Trump continues to push them in this extremely dangerous way. We’ll
see how it goes, but I’m really trying to make sure that we try to
get something that’s bipartisan through.”
New Jersey’s nine House
Democrats, too, are likely to push back on any partisan GOP funding
process. But without an equivalent to the filibuster, they don’t
have the same power to stop the Republican majority from doing
whatever it wants to do; just today, every present Democrat voted
against an Energy Department appropriations bill, but it
still passed
214-213. (New Jersey
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, notably, was not in attendance for the vote
amid her campaign for governor.)
The post With shutdown looming, Kim, Booker say they’re
willing to block Republican funding bill appeared first on
New Jersey Globe.
