What the Minnesota delegation has said about the federal shutdown

A government shutdown began at midnight Wednesday after Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate could not agree on spending proposals to keep the federal government up and running.

It’s the first shutdown since 2019 and will put thousands of federal workers at risk of furloughs and possibly mass layoffs. There could be disruptions to Minnesota programs that receive federal funding as well as to air travel, national park visitation and more.

The U.S. House passed the Republican-backed spending bill largely along party lines last month before leaving town, putting the onus on the U.S. Senate to pass its bill.

Minnesota’s four Republicans in the U.S. House — Reps. Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad — all supported the bill in the lower chamber. The state’s four House Democrats — Reps. Betty McCollum, Angie Craig, Ilhan Omar and Kelly Morrison — all voted against it.

Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith both rejected the Republican spending proposal and voted for the rival one put forth by Democrats, which was rejected in a party-line vote Tuesday.

The Senate plans to vote once again Wednesday on each side’s proposals to try to get the government back open. Republicans were able to get three Democrats to support their bill Tuesday. They need just five more Democrats to pass their bill and end the shutdown.

Here’s what Minnesota’s 10 members of Congress have said about the shutdown:

Smith said Tuesday that “federal workers have been through hell.”

“Even though we’re in a shutdown, there are all sorts of people who help make those [government] functions happen,” she said. “People are going to be working without getting paid. They’ll get their paycheck when the shutdown is over, but that’s a real cash-flow issue for people.”

Emmer said at a Republican leadership news conference on Wednesday morning that “Republicans did our job.”

“The reason the government is shut down this morning is because the Democrats decided they would rather hold our government hostage and issue a $1.5 trillion ransom note of radical demands instead of joining us as we try to govern.”

McCollum said in a statement that she didn’t want government to shut down and criticized Republicans in the House for leaving Washington after passing their bill.

Stauber said that keeping government open is “not a partisan issue” and blamed Democrats for “making it one.”

“In 2024, Chuck Schumer stated that a shutdown would mean chaos and pain for the American people. I’d urge Senator Schumer and his fellow Democrats to remember his own words because the American people deserve better than this hypocrisy,” he said in a statement.

Craig, a swing-district Democrat running for U.S. Senate, said the president “refused to come to the table” to negotiate a bill with Democrats.

“President Trump and Republicans continue to show us that the priorities they ran on – lowering costs and making life better for working Americans – were nothing but empty promises," she said.

Fischbach said on X that “a government shutdown is unnecessary. Congressional Republicans voted to keep government open.”

Finstad said the Republicans “did their job,” arguing their bill was straightforward, bipartisan and would give the government seven more weeks to negotiate. He said the Democrats’ proposal would increase spending by $1.5 trillion and that they are forcing a shutdown to score political points.

DFL Rep. Kelly Morrison posted a video to X that showed her on the steps of the Capitol with other Democrats. Morrison called upon her Republican colleagues to “fix the health care crisis they created” in order to stop the government from shutting down.