The Senate is voting to advance a Republican-written stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown at midnight, with enough Democrats joining Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, in voting with Republicans to push it past any filibuster by his own party.
Republicans needed eight Democrats to join them in voting to allow the bill to advance.
If the Senate fails to pass the funding extension in a vote later in the day, federal funding will lapse at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.
Mr. Schumer’s abrupt decision on Thursday to reverse himself and allow the spending legislation to advance stunned many of his colleagues and angered many Democratic lawmakers and progressive activists. Many in his party have vociferously opposed the temporary spending measure, arguing that it was a capitulation to President Trump, and have said that they would rather shut the government down than vote for it.
As recently as Wednesday, Mr. Schumer was arguing strongly against the bill, instead proposing a monthlong alternative to allow Congress to reach an agreement on individual spending measures with specific instructions over how federal funding should be doled out.
But he reversed course on Thursday, with a shutdown looming and amid concerns that Democrats would be blamed. He argued that a shutdown would only play into the hands of Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, ceding more power to them as they move to defund and dismantle whole swaths of the federal government. In that scenario, he said, the Trump administration could decide which federal workers would be “nonessential” and furloughed. And he warned that Republicans would have little incentive to reopen the government once it shut down.
“As bad as the C.R. is,” Mr. Schumer said on Friday morning, referring to the bill known as a continuing resolution, “I believe that allowing President Trump to take more power is a far worse option.”
A number of centrist Democrats as well as Democrats facing tough re-election contests next year who had been seen as potential supporters of the measure, have said they would oppose it. Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who will face voters next year, said in a statement that he would vote to block the legislation in part because it failed “to impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”
“Both parties in Congress must fulfill our constitutional obligation to check the president,” Mr. Ossoff said.
At issue for Democrats is that the stopgap measure does not contain the specific congressional instructions to allocate money for programs usually included in spending bills. Democrats, including Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the party’s lead appropriator, have warned that the lack of explicit directions would essentially create slush funds for the Trump administration at a time when they have already disregarded spending directives set by Congress.
“We have already seen how far President Trump, Elon Musk and Russ Vought are willing to twist — and outright break — our laws to suit their will,” Ms. Murray said. “But House Republicans are setting them up to make everything so far look like child’s play.”