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Did Democrats vote against government reopen bills 13 times and when did this occur?
Executive Summary
The claim that “Democrats voted against government reopen bills 13 times” cannot be verified with the materials provided because the three documents in the analysis packet contain no relevant information about congressional votes or government-reopening legislation. All three supplied sources are unrelated programming or Stack Exchange pages and therefore do not support or refute the numeric allegation; the available evidence is insufficient to confirm when or whether such votes occurred [1] [2] [3]. To answer the claim authoritatively would require roll-call records, legislative text, or contemporary reporting from congressional calendars and vote logs.
1. Why the supplied evidence fails to substantiate the claim
Each of the three sources in the packet is a technical Q&A or coding discussion that makes no reference to congressional voting patterns, government funding measures, or party-line roll calls, so none can substantiate the statement that Democrats voted against government reopen bills 13 times. The provided items are titled and formatted like Stack Exchange posts about programming and process behavior and contain no legislative content; therefore they are irrelevant to the political claim [1] [2] [3]. Because the evidentiary standard for verifying a numeric claim about roll-call counts requires direct citation to congressional records, official vote tallies, or reputable news reporting, these documents fall short and cannot be used as a basis for fact-checking.
2. What evidence would be required to verify the "13 times" assertion
To verify whether Democrats opposed government-reopen bills exactly 13 times, authoritative primary sources are necessary: House and Senate roll-call votes archived by the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate, the Congressional Record, or consolidated vote-tally databases such as GovTrack or Congress.gov. Secondary confirmation should come from contemporaneous reporting by major news organizations or nonpartisan policy trackers that list bill numbers, vote dates, sponsor names, and party-line breakdowns. Any analysis must match bill text defining “reopen” (continuing resolutions, funding bills, stopgap measures) and specify whether procedural votes, amendments, or final passage votes are being counted; differing definitions can change the count significantly, so precise criteria are essential.
3. Alternative explanations and likely sources of confusion
Counts such as “13 times” frequently arise from partisan messaging that either counts every procedural opposition or selectively aggregates votes across multiple sessions and contexts; this can produce inflated or misleading totals if the definition of “reopen bills” is vague. Differences between the House and Senate, and between procedural cloture or motion-to-proceed votes and final passage, create room for divergent tallies. Without access to the original claim’s methodology—what bills were included, which chamber, and what types of votes were included—any external verification cannot reliably reproduce the number. Thus the claim may reflect a stylistic argument or rhetorical framing rather than a reproducible roll-call count, and should be treated as unverified absent clear methodology.
4. Where to find definitive data and how to interpret it
Definitive verification requires consulting official congressional vote records and reputable aggregators, and then documenting each included vote: bill number, date, chamber, vote type, and party breakdown. Once those primary records are collected, compile a transparent spreadsheet showing inclusion criteria and explain any exclusions, such as votes on continuing resolutions versus appropriations bills. Journalistic or academic fact-checkers typically publish methodology alongside their tallies so readers can evaluate choices. If the source of the “13 times” count is a political communication, the originator’s underlying spreadsheet or list should be requested; absent that, no independent fact-check can confirm the claim, and the correct label is unsupported by the supplied materials.
5. Bottom line: current status and recommended next steps
Given the supplied documents contain no applicable data, the responsible conclusion is that the statement is unverified with the current packet and cannot be affirmed or refuted here [1] [2] [3]. To decisively resolve the claim, obtain roll-call records from the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate, cross-check with Congress.gov or GovTrack vote pages, and ensure definitions (which bills, which votes) match the original claim. Until those sources are cited and the methodology disclosed, treat the assertion that “Democrats voted against government reopen bills 13 times” as unsupported rather than proven.