The Senate on Monday cleared a key procedural hurdle toward green-lighting a package to reopen the government, the first of a series of planned back-to-back votes.
Senators voted 60-40 to grease the skids toward final passage of the funding bill Monday night.
The eight Democrats who voted to advance the funding bill on Sunday night once again voted with every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The package would keep the government’s lights on until Jan. 30 and fund Military Construction, the legislative branch and the departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs for the full fiscal year.
The deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) also will give Democrats a vote on a proposal to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies by mid-December.
The vote was the first of as many as nine expected tallies as the Senate pushes to quickly finish its work on Day 41 of the shutdown.
“I could spend an hour talking about all the problems we’ve seen, which have snowballed the longer this shutdown has gone on,” Thune said earlier Monday on the floor, pointing to nutrition benefits not going out, air travel woes and that scores of government workers and Senate staffers haven’t been paid for nearly a month and a half.
“[A]ll of us … who voted for last night’s bill are well aware of the facts,” he said. “I am grateful that the end is in sight.”
The vote came after hours of efforts by GOP leaders to clear a hold by Paul, who was upset at a provision in the Agriculture package that would harm the hemp industry. In order to expedite passage of the bills on Monday, leaders handed Paul a standalone amendment vote on the hemp provision in the bill, which was included by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Without a time agreement, it would have taken nearly a week to pass the funding bill.
House is expected to take the bill up in the coming days after nearly two months away from Washington. President Trump has indicated he will sign it.
