The Senate on Tuesday defeated a procedural step to force action on the bill to fund government operations in the new fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1. In the 40-59 vote, Democratic senators were unified in opposition and they were joined by 13 Republicans who voted to continue debate for a host of their own reasons.
As senators subsequently discussed, their failure to deal with the funding bill had virtually nothing to do with continuing operations of federal agencies and programs until Dec. 9. Instead, senators were seizing on the must-pass bill in an attempt to secure other legislative objectives.
