Congress careens toward a government shutdown with the Senate in the driver’s seat

Congress is in the midst of a shutdown stalemate, and lawmakers have left Washington. Only the Senate plans to return before government funding expires at the end of the month.

The House passed a short-term bill Friday to keep the government open into the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Hours later, the Senate rejected it, along with a Democratic alternative adding more health care spending and some of Democrats’ other priorities.

“All it takes is a handful of Democrats to join the Republicans in keeping the government open and funded,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, referring to the chamber’s 60-vote threshold for overcoming a filibuster.

He plans to hold a vote on the Republican bill again when the chamber returns next week. The House has adjourned through Oct. 1, putting pressure on the Senate to take that bill as the only option for averting a shutdown.

The measure, known in Capitol Hill jargon as a continuing resolution, extends most current spending levels and policies through Nov. 21, with some typical exceptions to allow higher spending rates in specific programs, such as those affecting national defense, disaster prevention and response, and food assistance.

Republicans said the measure was “clean” and free of partisan riders, which is what Democrats have always supported when stopgap funding measures have been needed.

Senate Democrats expressed hope that Republicans would agree to negotiate over the recess and said they didn’t need to be in Washington to come up with a workable plan.

“You don’t know about email and phones?” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat.

Mr. Thune said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, has not made any serious attempts to open a negotiation and requested a meeting with him only over “snail mail.”

Although he said he is open to a discussion, Mr. Thune made clear that Democrats need to come up with something other than the “liberal wish list” they are pushing.

“I don’t know why you would take hostage a seven-week continuing resolution to try and do a trillion dollars of policy,” he said. “It’s not serious. And they can’t make that argument with a straight face.”

Democrats are unlikely to give in and vote for the Republican plan unless their constituents sway them against their current strategy over the weeklong recess for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana. They are fighting to add their health care priorities to the must-pass government funding measure, including a permanent extension of pandemic-era expansions of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.

“We’ve been asking for months to do it. Why not do it now?” Mr. Schumer said. “People are hurting. Jobs are being lost. People are getting notices that their health care premiums are going up.”

A shutdown of nonessential government services beginning Oct. 1 appears increasingly likely, and Republicans and Democrats have started blaming each other.

“It is [Democrats’] goal to shut down the government,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican. “The left wing of their party is demanding it, and Chuck Schumer is snakebit. He’s afraid to do anything that they won’t want him to do.”

Democrats say Republicans would be responsible for a shutdown because they control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“If Republicans don’t bother working with Democrats, just because Donald Trump said so, it will be a Republican shutdown,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Trump signaled Friday that he is in no mood to give Democrats what they want.

“Elections have consequences,” he said of the Republicans’ 2024 sweep. “So we’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time.”

Mr. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New York Democrat, responded with a letter demanding a meeting with Mr. Trump.

Democrats stood largely united against the Republican stopgap plan in the House and Senate, unlike in March, when 10 Democrats, including Mr. Schumer, allowed a Republican-crafted spending bill to sail through the chamber.

Democrats inside and outside Congress complained about that move. Mr. Schumer has vowed to fight this time.

Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania were the only Democrats to vote for the Republican plan this time.

“It’s always wrong to shut our government down,” Mr. Fetterman said.

The House vote was 217-212. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted in opposition.

Mr. Massie argued that the stopgap preserves the status quo that has been in place since the Biden administration because Republicans have yet to enact full-year spending bills during Mr. Trump’s second term.

Ms. Spartz opposed extending the funding deadline to just before Thanksgiving, worried that Republican leaders would use the holiday to pressure members into supporting a bad deal on new spending bills.

Two Republicans also voted against the Republican plan in the Senate, where the 44-48 vote fell short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, had similar concerns to Mr. Massie’s about continuing Biden-era spending.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, said she viewed the Republican and Democratic stopgap bills as “messaging votes.”

She wants a two-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits added to the legislation, although she opposes Democrats’ proposal for a permanent extension.

Ms. Murkowski also wants at least a short-term funding infusion for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to prevent rural outlets in her state from closing because of the funding rescission Republicans enacted earlier this year. The Democrats’ bill, which she opposed, restores $491 million to the CPB to cover the upcoming fiscal year.

The Democratic bill also needed 60 votes and failed on a 47-45 vote. In addition to permanently extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, it would have repealed recent Republican-enacted cuts to Medicaid that implement work requirements for able-bodied adults and deny coverage to illegal immigrants.

It would also have restored funding to the National Institutes of Health and other programs that the White House Office of Management and Budget has frozen and guarded against the Trump administration’s impounding of congressionally appropriated funds in the future.