Congress misses shutdown deadline

UPDATE: Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill made little progress Saturday in resolving a stalemate in ending a partial government shutdown that began at midnight Friday night. The rare weekend sessions for the House and Senate involved mostly finger-pointing rather than solutions. Democrats continue to refuse to support a short-term budget extension to keep the government open unless President Donald Trump and Republicans agree to make a deal to fix the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the country as minors. The Senate adjourned Saturday night and will reconvene Sunday at 1 p.m.

OUR EARLIER REPORT (9:53 a.m.): Senate Republicans late Friday night failed to muster enough votes from both sides of the aisle to pass four-week budget extension, missing a midnight deadline to avoid a partial shutdown of the federal government. The House, which passed the measure Thursday night, and Senate scheduled a weekend session to begin considering an alternative short-term fix. Almost immediately, the blame game began. “Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.” President Donald Trump tweeted early Saturday morning that Democrats “could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead,” making the case that Americans need to elect more Republicans to the Senate in November. Schumer, who met with the president Friday afternoon to negotiate a deal, pinned the blame on Trump. “It’s almost as if you were rooting for a shutdown,” Schumer said from the Senate floor shortly after the vote, “and now we’ll have one.” Congress will consider a three-week version of the spending bill Saturday, as a shutdown will not affect most Americans until the beginning of the work week.