Updated: October 1, 2013, 12:13 AM
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in no uncertain terms said Senate Democrats would not go to a conference committee with House Republicans unless they send a clean continuing resolution to the Senate.
“We will not go to conference with a gun to our head,” Reid said late Monday night on the Senate floor. “The first thing the House has to do is pass a clean six-week C.R. They have that before them they can do that right now.”
Earlier in the evening the House Rules Committee began meeting to discuss a rule that would let House Republicans request a conference committee with the Senate to negotiate a government funding bill. That move came with little more than an hour hour left before the deadline to prevent a government shutdown.
Reid reiterated in his floor remarks that the only way for Republicans to work with Democrats was if they passed a clean continuing resolution.
“We will not go to conference until we get a clean CR,” Reid said, reiterating the Democrats’ line to demand a bill that would continue to fund the government at current levels.
After Reid, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), Reid’s lieutenants in the chamber, came to the floor to echo Reid’s message.
UPDATE 12:13 p.m. ET:
Shortly after midnight Reid announced that the Senate would adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
