Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-D) has surprised Democrats by scheduling a vote for Thursday to advance an $852 billion defense appropriations bill amid the government shutdown.
The defense measure passed the Appropriations Committee in July with strong Democratic support — 26 to 3 — but the political calculus has changed since then because of the government shutdown, which has now reached its third week.
Thune pushed the annual National Defense Authorization Act through the Senate last week and now he is challenging Democrats to block the defense appropriations bill as Republicans highlight how the shutdown is affecting national security.
“Even the prospect of military families going without pay was not enough to warrant reopening the government,” Thune said on the Senate floor Wednesday, referring to the Oct. 15 pay date for more than 1 million military service members.
President Trump has directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use “all available funds” to ensure troops do not receive their first paycheck during the shutdown.
Thune filed a clause on Tuesday on a motion to move forward on the defense spending bill, setting up a key procedural vote for Thursday.
He told reporters he expected to add labor, health and human services to the defense bill if Democrats agree to advance it later this week.
“I think the goal is to see what the traffic will bear in terms of additional bills,” Thune said. “We would like to put a package like we did on the floor last time, for which consent will be taken.
“If we can agree on defense appropriations, which we will vote on tomorrow, then we can start that negotiation process,” he said.
Thune would need the unanimous consent of all 100 senators to waive Senate Rule XVI, which prevents two or multiple appropriations bills from being packed together on the floor. Relaxing the rules was routine practice in previous years, but the prospects for doing so now have dimmed due to partisan tensions stoked by the shutdown.
Democrats voted to pass a defense spending bill out of committee this summer, but they could block it in the House this week.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a senior member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, said Wednesday that he has not yet made a public decision on how to vote on the measure.
He said Thune’s decision to hold a vote on the bill “came as a surprise to us.”
Asked how he would vote, he said, “Wait and see.”
