Senate Democrats are still grappling with “two awful options,” as Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) put it to us: Either they vote for the Republican continuing resolution, which they widely despise, or they vote against it and let the government shut down.
Senate Republicans, who need a handful of Democrats to pass the seven month, House GOP CR through the Senate, have offered Democrats virtually nothing in exchange for their votes. They’ve expressed openness only to letting Democrats vote for a different, month-long CR — which would certainly fail. In exchange, Democrats would help break the filibuster so Republicans could pass the House GOP CR. Not much of a deal for Democrats.
The extremely tight-lipped Senate Democrats were feeling the pain of that decision Thursday.