Senate in disarray with shutdown hours away

Here's how grim things looked in the Senate as the countdown continued toward a shutdown at midnight Friday: The chamber struggled to even schedule a vote to fund the government, let alone cobble together the votes to actually pass a bill.

After the GOP House passed a partisan month-long spending bill Thursday, senators in both parties appeared increasingly dug in. A spat on the Senate floor between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer culminated in the chamber adjourning with no clear path to avoid a shutdown in barely 24 hours.

No vote is scheduled, and the two party leaders spent the night sniping over who's to blame for the impasse. Democrats are demanding protections for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants facing deportation, and Republicans are insisting that government funding not be tied to immigration.

Senate Democrats have lined up in opposition to the spending bill approved by the House, putting the government on course for a shutdown.

For a few minutes late Thursday, it looked like the chamber couldn’t even agree to adjourn for the night after Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) objected to going to bed. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) ducked onto the Senate floor, checking on whether he would vote to have to adjourn the chamber — a rare procedural step invoked only at moments of the most severe gridlock.