Senate votes overwhelmingly to end government shutdown
BPC Staff Jan 22, 2018 | 10:28 pm
1 min read time
223 wordsAll Latest News, Government Policy and LawThe Senate voted 81-18 today to end the three-day-old government shutdown, The New York Times reported, with Democrats joining Republicans to clear the way for the passage of a short-term spending package that would fund the government through Feb. 8 in exchange for a promise from Republican leaders to address the fate of young, undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
“In a few hours, the government will reopen,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “We have a lot to do.”
The procedural vote does not immediately end the shutdown. The Senate must still grant final approval of the bill, and it must then be approved by the House, according to the Times.
But final passage is a formality, and after a weekend of partisan finger-pointing — in which Democrats branded the shutdown the “Trump Shutdown” and Republicans branded it the “Schumer shutdown” — the vote offered both parties a way out of an ugly impasse that threatened to cause political harm to both parties, said the Times.
Schumer announced that he and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, had “come to an arrangement” to adopt the three-week spending measure while continuing to negotiate a “global agreement” that would include the fate of the Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, reported the New York Times.