With only three days before the deadline for Congress to avoid a government shutdown, the Democrat-controlled Senate on Friday passed a bill to fund the government through Nov. 15, but stripped out a House Republican measure to defund the 2010 federal health care law known as Obamacare.
The end-of-the-week, 54-44 party-line vote sets the stage for a showdown with House Republicans, who are demanding that Obamacare lose its funding as a condition of keeping the government open. Congress must agree to spending levels by midnight Tuesday, or the federal government will partially shut down.
In the weeks preceding the vote, a small group of Senate Republicans, notably Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, actively campaigned to convince their colleagues to refuse to fund the government unless Obamacare is defunded. On Friday, they found few takers.
The conservative lawmakers used a filibuster to force the Senate to take a procedural vote to end debate, which required a 60-vote threshold to pass. That move gave Republicans a chance to block Obamacare funding — albeit at a risk of shutting down the government — and they called on fellow Republicans to join them.
