Democrats delay debt ceiling vote to huddle on McConnell offer

Senate Democrats are delaying a vote on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling through 2022 after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a potential off ramp from the weeks-long fight.

“They’re having a recess to discuss McConnell’s press release,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), referring to Democrats.

A member of GOP leadership confirmed that senators had been told they could leave the floor, where they had been voting on an unrelated nomination, for now.

Democrats are huddling off the floor to discuss how to talk about McConnell’s offer, which would give them the option of raising the debt ceiling into December.

“It’s not happening right now,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) of the cloture vote.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide said the Senate would go into recess after the nomination vote so the caucus could meet, with the cloture vote happening after that absent an agreement by the Senate to call it off.

The Senate was expected to vote on Wednesday to end debate on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling through December 2022. That bill would have been blocked by Republicans, who would have to provide 10 GOP votes to break a filibuster.

Lawmakers have until Oct. 18 to raise the debt ceiling or risk a historic default.

McConnell is offering to let Democrats pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling into December, setting up a potential end-of-the-year cliff.

“To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will … allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December,” McConnell said.

But the response from Democrats so far has been mixed.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called McConnell’s offer “bullshit” while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called it a “step forward.”