WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Friday rejected President Trump’s proposal to invoke the “nuclear option” to get funding for his border wall — putting the government on the path to a partial shutdown this weekend.
“We have rules to follow,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “I want to put a stop to this practice of the Senate breaking its rules to change its rules. I will not vote to turn the Senate into a rule-breaking institution and I hope that my colleagues will not.”
The GOP-led House passed legislation late Thursday along partisan lines to keep the government open through Feb. 8 and deliver $5.7 billion for the wall.
That legislation doesn’t have the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate, so Trump urged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to resort to the “nuclear option” and change the rules to pass his pet project with just a simple 51-vote majority.
But it was clear that not enough GOP senators want to make that change.
“I’ve long said that eliminating the legislative filibuster would be a mistake,” tweeted Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “It’s what’s prevented our country for decades from sliding toward liberalism. It’s inconvenient sometimes, but requiring compromise is in the interest of both parties in the long term.”
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he would refuse to vote to get rid of the 60-vote threshold. “The Senate filibuster is about the only mechanism left in Washington that brings the parties together. Deploying the nuclear option would blow that up.”