March 14, 2025 11:53 AM UTC

Bennet, Hick Hard "NO" On Republican Spending Resolution

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Reports today that Colorado’s Sen. Michael Bennet, who will vote against the continuing resolution, blew his stack this week in a private meeting in frustration over Democratic leadership’s lack of resolve to oppose the bill:

NEWS: Democratic Senate sources tell me the biggest frustration inside the caucus right now is the indecision from leadership. I'm told that Sen. Michael Bennet erupted in a private meeting earlier this week, accusing Democratic leadership of having "no strategy, no plan, and no… pic.twitter.com/5McHfaXZt5

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) March 14, 2025

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ABC News reports on the latest developments in the debate over a continuing resolution to keep the federal government’s doors open past an impending shutdown deadline this weekend: after initially signaling that Senate Democrats would hold together to resist the temporary spending plan, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer waved a white flag yesterday.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor Friday morning to defend his decision to support a Republican short-term funding bill that will effectively help avoid a government shutdown at the end of the day.

His surprise reversal, first announced Thursday evening — a day after he said he and Democrats would try to block the bill — means there will almost certainly be enough Democratic votes to advance the measure to a final Senate vote Friday just hours before the shutdown deadline.

“As everyone knows, government funding expires at midnight tonight. As I announced yesterday, I will vote to keep the government open. I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer said Friday.

Although Schumer’s capitulation increases the chances that the resolution will pass the Senate, several more Democrats will need to join him in voting for cloture on the CR in order for it to pass. And as AP reported yesterday afternoon, neither of Colorado’s Democratic Senators plan to do so:

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, said Wednesday during a virtual town hall he would vote against the Republican bill and vote “no” on the Senate cloture motion that needs 60 votes to get around the filibuster…

Colorado’s other senator, Democrat Michael Bennet, said Thursday he will also vote no on the bill and the cloture motion.

“Republicans knew they needed Democratic votes to pass their spending bill,” Bennet said in a written statement. “But they refused to work with Democrats on a bipartisan deal to put American families first.” [Pols emphasis]

This morning, Sen. John Hickenlooper reiterated his opposition in the wake of Schumer’s cave-in:

Democrats are undeniably faced with a difficult choice: to vote for a short-ish (but arguably not short enough) spending resolution that makes deep cuts to domestic spending while boosting military expenditures and was crafted without any input from Democrats, or let the government shut down with all of the attendant real-world consequences we’ve witnessed in previous impasses–made potentially worse this time by the likelihood that the Musk Trump administration would exploit a shutdown to further their agenda of hacking the federal government into bathtub-drownable bits.

Whatever the outcome, let the record show that Colorado’s U.S. Senators were ready to fight it out. Given the intense blowback Schumer is experiencing from grassroots Democrats who are spoiling for a fight, Bennet and Hickenlooper are in the right place politically.

But nothing about this situation is desirable for the national interest.