Senate's next appropriations vote to test depth of partisan rancor after Trump spending clawback

Partisan tension over Trump administration efforts to cut spending is raising the prospect of a shutdown fight come September, when government funding will run out.

The Senate this week will hold a test vote on appropriations that will preview how nasty that seemingly inevitable battle will become.

Democrats, whose votes will be needed to overcome a Senate filibuster and avert a shutdown in September, are sending warning signs that their cooperation won’t come easy.

The minority party is frustrated that Republicans unilaterally upended previous bipartisan spending agreements by passing a $9 billion rescissions package, cutting funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting that Congress appropriated.

Democrats are also livid with White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought for advocating for a more partisan appropriations process. 

As the Senate Appropriations Committee gathered for a markup of two of its spending bills Thursday, shortly after Mr. Vought’s comments and Senate passage of the $9 billion rescissions package, Democrats said Republicans were making cross-party dealmaking more difficult.

“Bipartisanship doesn’t end with any one line being crossed, it erodes over time — bit by bit,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee. “And frankly, I am alarmed by how quickly that erosion is happening right now, over the last six months, and certainly over the last 24 hours.”

The Washington Democrat said Republicans need to “decide if they are going to hit the brakes or go over the cliff.” 

“The question of whether forging a bipartisan path is hopeless or not will depend very much on whether this Committee is able to lock arms, and whether our colleagues will defend bipartisan deals from a budget chief who believes quite plainly that Congress — and appropriators — should have as little say as possible on federal spending,” Ms. Murray said. 

A few hours later, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, called on President Trump to fire Mr. Vought and urged Republicans to stand up to the budget chief.

“Where are the Republicans?” he said. “Where are they in standing up to this man who wants to undo 200 years of history, undo our democracy and just help the rich cronies of himself and Trump?”

Republicans shrugged off Mr. Vought’s comments by pointing out that spending bills, like most legislation in the Senate, are subject to the filibuster, which takes 60 votes to clear. The filibuster forces bipartisan dealmaking since neither party has a filibuster-proof majority.

“It may have been wishful thinking, but in the United States Senate, it has to be bipartisan,” Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, told The Washington Times.

Mr. Rounds said he respects Democrats’ concerns about the erosion of the bipartisan appropriations process and that Republicans have their work cut out for them to prove they’re serious about moving bipartisan spending bills.

“We also know that they would much rather have an appropriations process that works rather than doing a continuing resolution, which does not work in their favor,” he said of a stopgap funding measure. “So we’ll try to do our best to find common ground.”

The process for advancing the 12 annual appropriations bills is behind schedule, as it is most years, and at least a temporary stopgap measure will certainly be needed come September to give lawmakers more time to negotiate a bipartisan, bicameral spending deal.

For now, the House and Senate are focused on moving their own separate appropriations measures through committee and on the floor.

The House bills, two of which have passed the chamber, are mostly partisan since Republicans don’t need Democratic votes in the lower chamber if they remain unified.

The Senate bills are largely bipartisan. The Appropriations Committee has approved four of the 12 bills, funding the legislative branch and the Agriculture, Commerce, Justice and Veterans Affairs departments.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is making moves to bring at least some of those bills to the floor. The South Dakota Republican made restoring a regular appropriations process in the Senate a central tenet of his campaign for GOP leader last fall after Mr. Schumer, the previous majority leader, did not bring any bills to the floor.

“We’re going to try and tee them up, and we’ll see if the Democrats want to play ball. I hope they do,” Mr. Thune said, adding that despite Democrats’ “threats to the contrary, at the end of the day, I think it’s in everybody’s interest to figure out how to keep the government funded.”

On Tuesday, the Senate is set to hold a procedural test vote that, if successful, would allow the chamber to take up a “minibus” package of the committee-approved bills.

Republicans have not yet decided which of the four measures to include in the minibus. A likely measure to be left out is funding for the Commerce and Justice departments because it earned far less bipartisan support than the others.

Only four Democrats voted for that bill in committee, with the others opposed because Republicans blocked an amendment to force the new FBI headquarters to be built at a site previously selected in Maryland. The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it would reverse that decision and instead move the FBI to the Ronald Reagan Building complex in Washington.

Senate Democrats have not said how they’ll handle Tuesday’s test vote, which may depend on what decision Republicans make about the minibus packaging.

Sen. Peter Welch, an appropriator, said Democrats don’t want a government shutdown in the fall and would like to see the bipartisan appropriations process work. 

“But it takes two sides to make that outcome possible,” the Vermont Democrat said.

Mr. Welch said Republicans’ use of the filibuster-proof rescissions process to cut spending on programs lawmakers agreed to fund on a bipartisan basis makes Democrats question whether any spending agreement they reach for this fiscal year will be kept.

“That’s why it totally erodes the confidence and trust that’s required for mutual negotiation and resolution,” he said.

Republicans say Democrats refusing to advance the bipartisan appropriations bills would only lead to a worse outcome for them.

“If they don’t work with us on [appropriations], then how do they get anything they want?” Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, told The Times.

He cited the agriculture appropriations bill he led as an example of why it’s in Democrats’ interest to work with Republicans. Mr. Hoeven compromised and cut funding to programs the GOP favors to provide $500 million in funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, a top Democratic priority. 

“Are we going to do some rescissions at the same time? Yeah,” he said. “And that’s just the reality of the thing. So they can say, ‘Okay, we don’t like it, and so we’re just going to just disengage.’ That’s fine. Then they’re just out of luck.”

Sen. John Boozman, Arkansas Republican, agreed Democrats will have “no say” in what programs get funded if they don’t cooperate. But even if they do, he acknowledged a government shutdown in the fall is “very possible,” given the need to also negotiate with the House and the White House.

“With everything working very, very smoothly, it’s going to be difficult,” Mr. Boozman said. If Democrats put up roadblocks, “it just makes it that much harder.”