Which members of Congress or parties are blocking funding and why?

1. What the competing claims actually are and where they came from — a quick inventory that matters now

The central factual claims in the materials are: Democrats repeatedly voted against floor motions to advance House-passed continuing resolutions because they demanded guarantees on expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversals of Medicaid cuts; Senate votes to open the government failed to reach 60 for cloture, with only a handful of Democrats joining Republicans to advance bills ^{[1] [2]}. A second cluster of claims says individual senators blocked narrowly targeted bills: Senator John Kennedy’s proposals to withhold congressional pay and to restore pay for essential workers were stalled after objections from Senator Rand Paul and Senator Patty Murray ^[3]. A third line attributes holding up or clawing back funding to the executive branch—the Trump administration is described as freezing or litigating over disbursed funds in separate appropriations fights, a compilation by House and Senate Appropriations Democratic staff alleges $425 billion in freezes or withheld actions ^[5].

2. Who is actually voting “no” on funding and why — the arithmetic and the motive map

The roll-call arithmetic is plain: missed 60-vote thresholds in the Senate left House-passed stopgaps unable to proceed; Senate Democrats collectively supplied most of the no votes across multiple cloture attempts, with only roughly three Democrats sometimes voting to advance the bills ^{[1] [2]}. Democrats justify their position as leverage to secure policy protections tied to health-insurance tax credits and Medicaid funding rather than a pure procedural obstruction: they insist that any reopening must include ironclad commitments to extend expiring subsidies and to mitigate GOP-originated Medicaid cuts ^{[6] [7]}. Republicans counter that Democrats are needlessly prolonging the shutdown and that negotiations should occur after the government reopens; GOP leaders publicly framed Democratic resistance as refusal to govern and called for clean continuing resolutions ^{[1] [4]}.

3. The outlier interventions: senators objecting to targeted measures and their stated rationales

Several procedural and targeted interventions complicate a simple partisan narrative. Senator Rand Paul objected to Kennedy’s “no pay” proposals and other measures, while Senator Patty Murray blocked an attempt to guarantee pay for essential federal employees in the same sequence of votes; these actions demonstrate that individual senators across parties can and did block specific bills for differing reasons—Paul’s objections often stem from constitutional or procedural grounds, while Murray’s appeared tied to broader strategy about bargaining leverage and fairness for workers during the shutdown ^[3]. Senator Rick Scott and others have framed Democratic opposition as hypocritical and have pushed symbolic bills like the No Budget, No Pay Act to shift political blame and pressure senators to support reopening ^[4].

4. The executive branch and appropriations staff claims: a parallel story of frozen funding

Beyond floor votes, Democratic appropriations staff compiled instances where the Trump administration is accused of withholding or litigating over previously authorized funds, claiming more than $425 billion in impacted funding and describing court fights to compel releases in some cases ^[5]. This constitutes a separate fungible form of “blocking” that is not a Senate vote but an administrative restraining of disbursements; Democrats emphasize community and program impacts from those freezes, while the administration defends legal or policy grounds for its holds. The two narratives—legislative refusals to vote and executive freezes—interact politically but are technically distinct forms of obstruction ^[5].

5. The real-world consequences highlighted across these accounts

The reporting stresses tangible impacts: SNAP benefits nearing expiration, air-traffic delays tied to controller staffing strains, and roughly 1.4 million federal employees furloughed or working unpaid are documented stresses of the shutdown cited in multiple pieces ^{[1] [6]}. Economists cited estimate weekly GDP drags of 0.1–0.2 percentage points during prolonged shutdowns, framing the dispute as imposing measurable economic costs while bargaining continues ^[6]. Union leaders and federal worker advocates publicly urged Democrats to accept clean continuing resolutions to restore pay and services, illustrating tension between policy leverage and immediate worker hardship ^[1].

6. What is still contested and where to watch next

What remains disputed is whether the health-subsidy and Medicaid bargaining demands are legitimate bargaining chips or intransigent demands that prolong harm; Democrats and moderates within their caucus show internal tensions on this calculus, and GOP leaders say they will only negotiate health credits once the government reopens, producing a procedural standoff ^{[7] [2]}. Another open question is how much the executive-branch freezes will factor into negotiations: Democratic appropriators treat those holds as additional leverage and evidence of obstruction, while the administration maintains legal justifications for selective pauses ^[5]. Watch for amendment language tying explicit subsidy extensions or Medicaid reversals to stopgap funding and for further single-senator objections that can reshape procedural outcomes on the floor ^{[3] [4]}.