Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is doubling down on supporting a Republican spending bill crafted by GOP leaders and the White House, with no Democratic input.
The bill narrowly passed in the House on a 217-213 vote this week. Every Republican except Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, supporting the legislation. Meanwhile, every Democrat, except Rep. Jared Golden (Maine) voted against it.
Fetterman told Punchbowl News that the bill is “flawed” but argued that Senate Democrats lost their leverage because House Republicans did not need Democratic votes to pass the legislation.
“The only time we had any leverage … [was if] the Republicans needed our votes in the House,” Fetterman said. “The GOP delivered and that effectively iced us out and that forces us to say, are you gonna shut the government down? or are you are gonna vote for a flawed CR? And now for me, I refuse to shut the government down.”
While Republicans in the House did not need Democrats to pass the bill, Fetterman is wrong to claim that Senate Democrats have no leverage.
At least eight Senate Democrats are needed to join Republicans to clear a 60-vote threshold and advance the spending bill to the floor for a final vote. Though Republicans have a 53-seat majority Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was a firm no on the bill.
Also, even though Fetterman is suggesting that he is only reluctantly supporting the partisan bill because House Republicans never needed any Democratic votes, it is worth noting that Fetterman came out in support of the bill before the House voted on Tuesday.
“I refuse to burn the village down and to claim to save it,” he told NBC News hours before the House voted. “I probably won’t agree with many facets of that CR, but when the choice is about shutting the government down, I don’t want to be involved with that.”
