Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a bipartisan, pro-Israel bill that many of them support to protest the government shutdown, and they said they’d vote down any bill that doesn’t reopen the government.
Sixty votes were needed to open debate on the Middle East security legislation, which includes language allowing states to stop doing business with companies that boycott Israel as part of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.
Most Democrats voted against it, and the bill failed to move ahead in a 57-43 vote.
Republicans contend Democrats blocked the bill not because of the government shutdown fight, but because their party is divided over the BDS movement, which aims to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Republicans decried the Democratic filibuster.
“I expected today’s action to be a big bipartisan vote, not some partisan showdown,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
McConnell pointed out that the bill includes provisions broadly backed by Democrats, many of whom cosponsored the provisions in the previous Congress.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who supports voting on legislation to fund the government, said Democrats were employing “a partisan double standard.”
Democrats argued that lawmakers should vote to fund the federal government, even though President Trump has pledged not to sign a funding bill unless it includes money for a border wall.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who represents thousands of government employees who will not receive paychecks during the shutdown beginning on Friday, said on the Senate floor that “the first order of business should be to reopen the federal government … then we can have a discussion on how to best secure our borders.”
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the blocked legislation who also represents thousands of federal workers, also voted to filibuster the bill.
“Let’s put aside what is currently pending,” Cardin said. “We can return to that calendar immediately thereafter, but let’s make sure we get these bills passed so we can open government now.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., whose state is home to many federal workers and two major airports, warned TSA sick-outs will begin to increase beginning Friday when paychecks don’t arrive.
But McConnell called the Democratic filibuster “a partisan tantrum, being prioritized over the public interest,” and he pointed out that Democrats have in the past voted to spend federal money to construct 700 miles of border wall.
“Enforcing our laws wasn’t immoral back in 2006 when then-Senator Clinton, then-Senator Obama, and my friend the Democratic Leader were proud to vote for physical barriers,” McConnell said.
A lead sponsor, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, called the provisions in the bill “about as unanimous as anything around here gets,” adding the Senate “can walk and chew gum at the same time” and can consider the measure while dealing with the shutdown fight.
The bill in question was S.1, and Republicans were hoping it would be the first bill debated in the Senate in the 116th Congress. In addition to the BDS provision, the legislation would have provided a decade of security-related funding to Israel and would have renewed the U.S.-Jordan Defense Cooperation Act of 2015.
