Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, one of two Republicans to vote against the House-passed continuing resolution earlier this month, said she will now support it when it returns to the Senate floor on Tuesday.
“We’ve got mere hours before the end of the fiscal year, and so I’ve got no options now,” Murkowski said.
The Hill reported that she previously proposed a framework to keep the government open that would extend the expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies for a year.
Murkowski introduced her framework on Sept. 20, which also aimed to block the White House budget office’s effort to reclaim some foreign aid funding.
At the time, she expressed reservations about the House-passed continuing resolution but said Tuesday that she will change her vote from “no” to “yes” to prevent a government shutdown.
“I’m not interested in seeing a continued shutdown,” she said.
With Murkowski’s switch, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is currently the only Republican expected to oppose the House-crafted stopgap measure. Paul has said he opposes the resolution because it maintains Biden-era funding levels.
The Senate’s vote marks a second attempt to approve the House-passed continuing resolution after the initial effort earlier this month failed to secure enough support from Republicans.
Without a funding agreement, the federal government will shut down early Wednesday, resulting in an unknown number of layoffs and the closure of some government offices.
Murkowski posted on Sept. 20 after the first Senate vote on the House bill that, “Yesterday, I voted against two partisan proposals to temporarily fund the government that had no chance of clearing the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. With these votes, we demonstrated what we can’t do — now it’s time to focus on what we can do to avert a shutdown.”
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