Live: Senate votes on government funding bill with $5B for border wall Live: Senate votes on government funding bill with $5B for border wall Live from the Senate floor after partial government shutdown - Quorum Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7-T53M7vtw Schedule for Saturday, December 22, 2018: The Senate stands adjourned until 12:00 Noon on Saturday, December 22, 2018. Following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of the House Message to accompany H.R.695, the House-passed CR. Roll call votes are possible during Saturday’s session. Nothing going on at the moment, but I suspect there is some serious arm wrestling going on behind the scenes. TWEET: Donald J. Trump ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago Will be having lunch in White House residence with large group concerning Border Security. 2:09pm ET, Senator Leahy (Demoncrap) filibustering, playing the violin now, blaming the shutdown on big bad Trump!  Gov't employees are now plunged into irreversible poverty....blah, blah, blah.... 2:40pm ET, a GOP Senatoris pushing through several bills, with a small quorum (just like what was done with the Federal Reserve Act in 1913....a small quorum approved that bill too).  These bills don't appear to be big ones, something for NJ, etc.  Too bad they can't do this with the budget bill.   2:45pm calling for a quorum call....by a GA Senator.  Now delivering his speech.  Stop illegal drugs, stop human trafficking, stop criminals fleeing justice from their home countries.  This is the 2nd Schumer Shutdown. Demands they vote. Senate President CALLING ROLL...calls Mr. Alexander, and there was no response, so now nothing going on again. 3pm ET Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, appears to be pushing through a whole bunch of minor house bills, setting them up for no discussion votes. The Senate will next have a Pro Forma Session on Monday Dec 24th, at 11am, to allow continuation of productive discussions which are currently underway.  If agreement is reached senators will be notified of a vote. The next scheduled senate session, after Mon,  will be on Dec 27th at 4pm. Senate stands adjourned until 11am on Monday, Dec 24. WHAT IS A PRO FORMA SESSION??? Technically it means that the Senate is not adjourned and therefore, POTUS can not make any appointments while Congress is adjourned. The term pro forma is a Latin term meaning “as a matter of form” or “for the sake of form.” While either chamber of Congress can hold them, pro forma sessions are most often held in the Senate. Typically, no legislative business, such as the introduction or debate on bills or resolutions, is conducted during a pro forma session. As a result, pro forma sessions rarely last more than a few minutes from gavel-to-gavel. Key Takeaways: Pro Forma Sessions Pro forma sessions are meetings of the U.S. Congress held “in form only.” Either house of Congress can hold pro forma sessions. During pro forma sessions, no votes are taken and no other legislative business is conducted. Pro forma sessions are held for the purpose of meeting the “three-day rule” in Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution. The three day rule prohibits either chamber of Congress from not meeting for more than three consecutive calendar days during a congressional session without the approval of the other chamber. https://www.thoughtco.com/pro-forma-sessions-in-congress-3322325 US govt partially shuts down as Trump and Congress fail to agree on border wall The US government partially shut down early Saturday after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement over the House-approved funding bill providing $5.7 billion for a US-Mexico border wall.  Both the US Senate and the House adjourned for the night without voting on funding for the project. Vice-President Mike Pence earlier broke a tie in a procedural vote to keep discussing the bill. The floor had stayed open for over five hours, as senators rushed back to Washington, DC to voice their opinion on the measure allocating €5.7 billion to fund the border wall, which was passed in the House of Representatives the day before. It was reportedly the longest floor vote in modern Senate history. Democrats remain opposed to providing any funding for Trump’s wall proposal, now or ever. “The wall does not have 60 votes, let alone 50 votes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on the floor after the vote. The continuing resolution would require the approval of 60 senators, and the Republicans currently hold 51 seats. Democrat and Republican leadership did agree, however, that the next roll call would be on the actual spending bill, rather than another procedural vote. At midnight Eastern time on Saturday, the Congress-approved funding for about a quarter of US government functions runs out, leaving approximately 800,000 federal workers in the lurch on the weekend before the Christmas holiday. Trump pinned blame on the Democrats. “We’re going to have a shutdown. There's nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes,” Trump said in a video posted on Twitter, roughly two hours before the partial shutdown came into effect. Both the Senate and the House are due to reconvene at noon on Saturday. This is the third shutdown for the US government in a year. The previous two took place in January and February. https://www.rt.com/usa/447180-senate-vote-funding-wall/ Here are the agencies that are affected by the partial shutdown, note that anyone furloughed will get back paid, so no one is plunged into poverty: Vice President Mike Pence, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney left the Capitol late Friday after hours of bargaining with congressional leaders produced no apparent compromise. “We don’t have a deal. We’re still talking,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told reporters. Late Friday, Mulvaney sent agency heads a memorandum telling them to “execute plans for an orderly shutdown.” He wrote that administration officials were “hopeful that this lapse in appropriations will be of short duration” — an expectation that was widely shared. With negotiations expected to continue, the House and Senate both scheduled rare Saturday sessions. House members were told they’d get 24 hours’ notice before a vote. The gridlock blocks money for nine of 15 Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, State and Justice. The lack of funds will disrupt many government operations and the routines of 800,000 federal employees. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and will work unpaid just days before Christmas, while 380,000 will be furloughed, meaning they’ll stay home without pay. Those being furloughed include nearly everyone at NASA and 52,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service. About 8 in 10 employees of the National Park Service will stay home and many parks were expected to close. The Senate passed legislation ensuring workers will receive back pay, which the House seemed sure to approve. Some agencies, including the Pentagon and the departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, were already funded for the year in agreements reached earlier, and they will operate as usual. The U.S. Postal Service, busy delivering packages for the holiday season, will not be affected because it’s an independent agency. Social Security checks will still be mailed, troops will remain on duty and food inspections will continue. Also still functioning will be the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. Transportation Security Administration officers will continue to staff airport checkpoints and air traffic controllers will also remain at work. https://apnews.com/1ccfe0de023c4ef986a396707e4d83ac