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Fact check: How did Senate Democrats vote on the 13 shutdown-related measures and on what dates?
Executive Summary
Senate roll-call details for all 13 shutdown-related measures are not fully provided in the documents you supplied; the available reports confirm at least one high-profile 13th vote in late October 2025 in which most Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-led funding measure and three senators—John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King—voted to advance it [1] [2]. The assembled sources leave gaps on the complete list of measures, full Democratic vote tallies across all 13 votes, and precise dates for most of the individual roll calls [3] [4].
1. What the claim asks — and what the sources actually deliver: a mismatch that matters
The user asked for a complete accounting of “how Senate Democrats voted on the 13 shutdown-related measures and on what dates.” The dataset provided does not supply a comprehensive roll-call record. Multiple news items note Senate action and repeated attempts to advance funding, but they stop short of listing each of the 13 measures with cast votes and timestamps. Several pieces explicitly say they do not contain detailed vote breakdowns for all 13 measures, which means the claim cannot be fully answered from these sources alone without consulting roll-call logs or consolidated voting records maintained by the Senate Clerk or detailed legislative trackers [3] [2]. This is a critical evidentiary gap.
2. The clearest documented vote: a late-October 2025 13th attempt and the three Democrats who voted to advance it
The most specific data point across the set is a report that during what was described as the Senate’s 13th vote to advance a government-funding measure, only three senators who caucus with Democrats—Sen. John Fetterman, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, and Independent Sen. Angus King—voted to advance the Republican-led proposal, while the remaining Senate Democrats blocked it [1]. That article frames the vote as part of a late-October pattern of repeated failed attempts to break the impasse; another live update notes the Senate adjourned without a breakthrough, extending the shutdown into its 34th day [3]. This vote is dated to the end of October 2025 in those reports.
3. Multiple sources confirm repeated failed attempts but not the full roll-call series
Two separate live-update pieces and a local news report describe a cycle of repeated votes and at least one explicit 13th failure, yet they do not enumerate the other 12 measures or supply full Democratic tallies for each prior motion [3] [2]. A different dataset refers to earlier votes on funding packages in March 2024 and October 2025 but mixes contexts—some concern a broad $1.2 trillion bill, others concern short-term GOP proposals—so the reports conflate different legislative efforts rather than providing a clean, date-by-date roll-call log for a single 13-measure sequence [5] [6] [4]. The reporting focus is narrative and live-update driven, not archival roll-call disclosure.
4. What can be reliably extracted from the available items and what remains unknown
From these sources you can reliably extract that the Senate held repeated votes to reopen funding, that a 13th attempt in late October 2025 failed with only three pro-advance votes from the Democratic caucus side, and that the impasse extended the shutdown into its 34th day [1] [3]. What remains unknown are the identities of Democratic voters on each of the other 12 measures, the precise titles or text of those measures, the exact calendar dates and times for each individual roll call, and whether those prior votes were identical procedural motions or materially different funding proposals [2] [4]. Full verification requires access to Senate roll-call records.
5. Where to find definitive answers and why the gap may reflect reporting choices or political framing
The authoritative sources for complete answers are the Senate Clerk’s roll-call database and official congressional vote trackers (Congress.gov roll call votes and the Senate’s recorded votes archive). Newsrooms often cover high-profile votes in live updates and summaries but omit exhaustive roll-call lists to avoid clutter; political outlets may also emphasize narrative frames—e.g., "Democrats blocked a bill"—to spotlight tactical outcomes rather than granular voting histories [3]. When outlets single out names like Fetterman, Cortez Masto, and King, they are highlighting deviations from party-line unity, which is newsworthy but not a substitute for a full roll-call dataset. Consulting the official Senate roll-call pages delivers the precise answer requested.
6. Bottom line: verified fragmentary evidence and the path to a complete record
Your materials verify at least one explicit late-October 2025 13th vote where three members aligned with Democrats voted to advance a GOP bill while the broader Democratic caucus opposed it, and they document the Senate adjourning without resolving the shutdown [1] [3]. They do not, however, provide a complete, date-stamped list of all 13 shutdown-related measures and how each Senate Democrat voted. To produce a definitive, item-by-item accounting, retrieve the Senate Clerk’s roll-call records for the relevant dates in October 2025 and cross-check with contemporaneous major outlets for context and any labeling differences among the 13 measures. That combined approach will close the evidentiary gap left by these reports.