After the House of Representatives on Wednesday night scuttled House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to temporarily fund the government, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Congress’ upper chamber will “step in” to try and avert a shutdown.

What You Need To Know

  • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Congress’ upper chamber will “step in” to try and avert a shutdown

  • Schumer's comments come one day after the House of Representatives rejected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to temporarily fund the government, which was paired with a GOP-backed bill aimed at curbing noncitizen voting

  • Johnson pulled a vote on the measure last week in the face of mounting opposition from both Democrats and members of his own party, but put it up for a vote amid pressure from former President Donald Trump to shut down the government if the noncitizen voting bill isn't passed

  • Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned that warned that a shutdown would be "beyond stupid" with the November election so close

More than a dozen Republicans joined nearly every Democrat in the House to reject Johnson’s plan, which paired a GOP-backed bill aimed at curbing noncitizen voting — something state data shows is an extremely rare practice — with a six-month extension of government funding.

Johnson pulled a vote on the measure last week in the face of mounting opposition from both Democrats and members of his own party, but put it up for a vote amid pressure from former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, who urged Republicans to shut down the government if the noncitizen voting act, known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, isn’t passed.

"If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form," Trump wrote on social media hours before the vote Thursday, baselessly alleging that Democrats are registering tens of thousands of noncitizens to vote. "A Vote must happen BEFORE the Election, not AFTER the Election when it is too late. BE SMART, REPUBLICANS, YOU’VE BEEN PUSHED AROUND LONG ENOUGH BY THE DEMOCRATS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN."

But with a Sept. 30 deadline rapidly approaching, lawmakers are back to square one, with no alternative plan from Johnson in sight.

"I'm already talking to colleague about their many ideas," Johnson said. "We have time to fix the situation, and we'll get right to it."

That, Schumer said Thursday, is where the Senate comes in.

“To the surprise of virtually no one, Speaker Johnson's deeply flawed and highly-partisan CR failed,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Thursday, highlighting the 202-220 vote (with two Republicans voting “present”) across the ideological spectrum as as evidence of “broad opposition to the Speaker's partisan maneuver.”

"It's time the Speaker moves on. Sadly, time is not a luxury that Congress has right now,” he added, noting that the Sept. 30 funding deadline is 11 days away. “And instead of doing the bipartisan work everyone knows is required for avoiding a shutdown, the House Republican leadership has wasted two weeks — two weeks — listening to Donald Trump’s ridiculous claims on the campaign trail.”

“Now that their efforts have failed, House Republicans don’t seem to have any plan for actually keeping the government open, so the Senate will step in,” Schumer said, adding that later in the day he will put the process in motion to allow Congress to avert a shutdown “in the event that Speaker Johnson does not work with us in a bipartisan, bicameral manner."

“Both sides are gonna spend the next few days trying to figure out the best path remaining to keep the government open,” the New York Democrat detailed. “By filing today, I’m giving the Senate maximum flexibility for preventing a shutdown … Senators are ready to work this process the right way, Democrats talking to Republicans, both sides at the negotiating table finding a way to keep the government open without partisan hoopla.”

The SAVE Act, which already passed the House earlier this year largely along party lines, would require proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections.

But currently, only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections, and state data shows that noncitizen voting is very rare.

Opponents say that the bill disenfranchises those who do not have documentation, such as a passport or birth certificate, readily available when registering to vote. Democrats referred to the bill as a “poison pill” in funding negotiations and urged Republicans to negotiate in a bipartisan manner.

Lawmakers in the Senate of both parties have suggested a shorter extension of funding, which would carry the government past November’s election and allow lawmakers to return to Washington in December to hammer out a long-term spending bill.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune earlier this week said his conference wanted to give their House counterparts space to figure things out, but added, “If they don't get something by the end of the week, the game changes.”

And Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned that warned that a shutdown would be "beyond stupid" with the November election so close.

"The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown," the Kentucky Republican said Tuesday. "It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election, because certainly we'd get the blame."