Booker, Kim say they won’t vote for stopgap funding bill, raising prospect of shutdown

Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim will both vote no on a House-passed stopgap government funding bill, the two senators announced this afternoon, raising the prospect of a shutdown if the Senate can’t come to an agreement before tomorrow night.

Earlier this week, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution (CR) on a party-line vote that keeps the government funded through September. House members then immediately left town, putting the pressure on the Senate to pass the same bill – and giving them little opportunity to put forward any changes or alternate proposals for averting a shutdown.

That has created an unenviable choice for Senate Democrats, whose votes are necessary for the CR to pass thanks to the 60-vote filibuster threshold (unlike in the House, where a simple majority is all that’s needed). Most Senate Democrats have little desire to see the government shut down, but they also have serious issues with the CR: it doesn’t limit Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s ability to shift or cancel funds, it makes reductions to some non-defense spending, and it creates major headaches for local government funding in Washington D.C., among other things.

Kim and Booker kept their cards close to the chest in recent days on how they would approach the looming CR vote, but today the dam broke: they’ll vote no.

“I am a no,” Booker said in a video posted to social media. “I will not support what they’re calling a continuing resolution, but it’s not. It actually is a surrendering of the powers of Congress to the president and Elon Musk… This would give them six months to do some pretty awful things. We’ve already seen what they’re willing to do to the Department of Education, to the VA, cancer research, and more. And now, this literally gives them license to destroy: to move large money around, to punish certain states against other states, cutting funding to local communities. There is so much bad stuff baked into this.”

“Republicans have made it so Musk and the most powerful win and everyone else loses,” Kim concurred. “I don’t want a shutdown but I can’t vote for this overreach of power, giving Trump and Musk unchecked power to line their pockets. I’m a NO on the CR.”

If every Republican senator were to vote for the CR, seven Democratic yes votes would still be necessary to reach the 60-vote threshold – a tall order in a caucus that has grown increasingly more wary of Trump, Musk, and the Republican agenda. A number of other Democratic senators, including those from competitive states like Arizona, also said today that they won’t support the CR.

One possible workaround that Democratic leaders have reportedly discussed is giving Republicans the votes needed for cloture (a Senate maneuver for limiting debate) in order to force a vote on their own preferred anti-shutdown bill, a short-term 30-day stopgap; after that likely fails, Republicans could then pass their own CR without Democratic votes. But Kim and Booker said they’d both vote against cloture, too, making that option more challenging.

Back when the CR came before the House, all three Republican members of the New Jersey delegation voted for it, with Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) saying that many of the arguments against it were based on “misinformation.”

“This bill simply extends current funding levels through September, preventing a government shutdown and providing time needed for President Trump and Congress to continue advancing their agenda to put Americans first,” Van Drew said in a statement. “Right now, there is misinformation circulating around this resolution, and I will not stand by as false narratives spread. The CR includes no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. In fact, this bill ensures that these critical programs can continue uninterrupted and fully funded.”

But the state’s nine Democratic representatives all opposed it for many of the same reasons that Senate Democrats are now so conflicted. Asked whether Democratic opposition means they should get the blame for a potential shutdown, though, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) was an emphatic no.

“Let me check – yes,” Norcross said. “[Republicans] control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. This is all on them.”