Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked a Defense Department funding bill for the second time as lawmakers failed to break a stalemate on spending ahead of a seven-week recess.
Senators voted 55-42 on a procedural hurdle for the House-passed bill, which would have been used as a vehicle for the Senate’s proposal. Sixty votes were needed to move forward.
{mosads}Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.) bucked party leadership and supported the proposal.
The vote comes after Democrats initially blocked the legislation last week during a late-night vote.
They’ve pledged to hold up the entire appropriations process unless they can get a deal from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to uphold a two-year budget deal and keep out “poison pill” riders.
The standoff makes it increasingly likely that Congress will need to pass a short-term spending bill in the fall. With lawmakers expected to leave Washington later Thursday until early September, they’ll have a matter of weeks ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline to fund the government.
McConnell blasted Democrats earlier Thursday for holding up legislation to fund the military despite current threats.
“Senate Democrats may try to spin their actions now, but it all boils down to one thing: This is just a partisan game,” he said from the Senate floor.
Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), however, fired back that McConnell wants to “walk out of here and leave the other appropriations bills stirring in the breeze.”
The floor fight comes after the Senate’s $574.5 billion defense spending bill passed unanimously out of the Appropriations Committee earlier this year.
Despite the stalemate on defense spending, the Senate voted to go to conference with House lawmakers on their dueling versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The wide-ranging bill authorizes, but doesn’t appropriate, money for the Pentagon and outlines broad policy. Lawmakers will need to work out differences, including billions in extra funds in the House bill and a fight over if women should be required to register for the draft.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted Democrats after the vote for approving the NDAA but blocking the defense appropriations bill. He implored Democrats to “examine their consciences.”
“All I can say is that when we see polling data that shows that the American people have a very low opinion of us,” he said, “this is a validation of their absolute disgust with our failure to do the work to protect the nation.”
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