GOP senator circulates plan to discuss government shutdown strategy with Trump
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, is circulating a plan to prevent another government shutdown later this year among Senate Republicans so they can discuss it when President Trump meets with GOP senators on Wednesday.
Scott, who invited Trump to lunch at the Capitol, says Democrats are unlikely to help pass any of the 12-year spending bills before the Sept. 30 deadline. He is pressing his colleagues to rally around a plan to pass a resolution that would freeze funding levels and prevent a third government shutdown in the 119th Congress.
He said his GOP colleagues should focus on preventing a government shutdown and passing the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require people to show documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote, as their top two priorities for the rest of this year.
“I hope we can continue to have substantive conversations this week as a conference about how we should spend our time between now and the November election,” Scott wrote in his letter published Monday. “President Trump is scheduled to be at our luncheon Wednesday. I hope everyone will say what they think is the best path forward, but here’s mine.”
He said Republicans should try to pass a clean stopgap funding measure to keep the government funded until the midterm elections in November.
“We must make it clear to all Americans that Democrats want to shut down the government and don’t care how it affects federal workers or the economy, while Republicans want to fund the government,” he wrote.
And he argued that Republicans should make another effort to pass the SAVE America Act, or at least some of it, such as requiring voters to show photo identification.
“We need to make it clear that Republicans want election security and Democrats want corruption,” he said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) said Democrats support voter ID requirements, but voted against an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) earlier this year to implement such reform.
Scott is also calling on Republicans to pass one of two bills to protect workers from the effects of a government shutdown: the Shutdown Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), which would pay federal workers to do essential work during a government shutdown, or the Government Shutdown Prevention Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), which would continue appropriations to prevent a government shutdown.
Lankford’s bill would limit official travel and congressional recess during a shutdown or partial shutdown.
“We need to make a clear distinction about who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. We need to show through action, not rhetoric, what Republicans stand for and what Democrats stand for,” Scott wrote, predicting another government shutdown stalemate in the fall.
He argued that Democrats “have been clear that they want to shut down the government on October 1 because they believe that’s the way to get to the majority in November.”
Schumer last week accused Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) of refusing to sit down with Democrats on the upper-level spending limit for annual appropriations bills.
Collins denied that accusation and said Schumer was “misinformed” about the status of the talks.
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