Republican senators appear to be opening the door to preventing a partial government shutdown as the chamber prepares to start voting on a House-passed package to fully fund a bevy of federal agencies through the remaining fiscal year.
The Senate is set to vote on a set of six funding bills as early as Thursday morning. If they don’t pass all of them, much of the federal government would shut down at Friday at 12:01 ET.
The bills would fund the Department of Homeland Security and a swath of other agencies, including the Treasury and Defense Departments. While the package once looked certain to clear the Senate and avoid a shutdown, the killing of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents last week derailed it.
Democrats are demanding that the DHS portion of the bill be stripped from the package and weighed separately to make changes to how the agency operates, a move that Republicans have so far resisted. On Wednesday, some Senate Republicans began to embrace the idea of splitting off DHS as a shutdown looms just months after a record 43-day closure last year.
The measure will require 60 votes to clear the Senate filibuster. Republicans only hold 53 seats in the upper chamber, meaning Democrats can block it if they withhold their votes.
