{"id":21158,"date":"2018-01-22T17:52:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T00:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=21158"},"modified":"2018-01-22T17:52:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T00:52:11","slug":"tester-daines-split-vote-on-ending-government-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/01\/tester-daines-split-vote-on-ending-government-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Tester, Daines split vote on ending government shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sens\"<\/a>

Sens. Jon Tester, left, and Steve Daines cast different votes on ending the government shutdown.<\/p><\/div>\n

Montana\u2019s two U.S. senators split their vote on ending the government shutdown on Monday, with Republican Sen. Steve Daines blaming Democrats for the stalemate and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester calling the measure bad for Montana.<\/p>\n

The Senate voted 81-18 to reopen the federal government in its mid-day vote, though the measure must still clear the House. The short-term bill funds the government through Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

Tester joined a handful of Democrats in voting no in Monday\u2019s drama, saying it was never about winning a Republican promise to address the fate of so-called Dreamers but rather, what was in the best interest of Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cA short-term, 17-day budget is no way to run a household or business, and it certainly isn\u2019t an acceptable way to run a government,\u201d Tester said. \u201cWe are once again seeing a failure of leadership in Washington and I will keep fighting tooth and nail for a long-term budget that funds Montana\u2019s rural health clinics, strengthens border security, and provides our military with the certainty they need to keep our nation safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Tester also introduced a bill to ensure service members are paid during a shutdown, and that Gold Star families receive assistance. But in breaking with red-state Democrats who went along with the majority vote to end the shutdown, Tester drew immediate condemnation from Republicans, including the Montana Republican Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely wrong that he continues to pursue this hostage-taking strategy to protect illegal immigrants over our military, seniors and children,\u201d the state GOP said in a press release. \u201cHe should be ashamed of himself for continuing to support a government shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tester, who is up for reelection this year, shrugged off the partisan criticism. He said the short-term budget patch didn\u2019t include funding for Montana\u2019s community health centers, nor additional resources for border security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile many people wanted to make this about immigration. This was always about Montana for me and I just won\u2019t allow Washington to keep failing our state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Daines said the Democratic Party was entirely responsible for the shutdown. The government funding bill includes a six-year reauthorization of the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program and keeps the government open for the next 17 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis afternoon Senate Democrats joined us and we were able to pass a bill to end the filibuster, setting us up to reopen the government and ensure our national security needs are met, and provide access to health care for 24,000 Montana kids,\u201d Daines said in a statement. \u201cHowever, this was avoidable. The Democrat shutdown was pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on\u00a0Missoula Current<\/a>, an independent online newspaper, of which\u00a0Martin Kidston is the founding editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montana\u2019s two U.S. senators split their vote on ending the government shutdown on Monday, with Republican Sen. Steve Daines blaming Democrats for the stalemate and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester calling the measure bad for Montana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":21159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3084,528],"class_list":["post-21158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","tag-jon-tester","tag-steve-daines","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21158"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21161,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21158\/revisions\/21161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}