Prospects for a spending bill to fund the entirety of the remaining two quarters of the federal fiscal year may have dimmed March 9 after the Senate rejected in back-to-back votes two proposed continuing resolutions.

The government has operated since the start of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, on a series of temporary spending measures, the current one expiring at midnight on March 18.

The Senate rejected a House-approved continuing resolution that would cut $61 billion from fiscal 2010 levels (or $100 billion when measured against the fiscal 2011 Obama budget request) in a 44-56 vote along partisan lines.

Then, about half an hour later, Senators rebuffed by 44-58 a continuing resolution proposed by Sen. Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) that would cut $51 billion when measured against the fiscal 2011 budget request. Inouye chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The second rejection vote was less clearly divided along partisan lines; although all the measure's supporters were Democrats, 11 of them joined Republicans in voting against it. Among the 11 was Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who is an independent but caucuses with the Democratic Party.

"One bill cuts too little," Sen. Ben Nelson ( D-Neb.), told the New York Times. "The other has too much hate." Nelson was among those who voted against Inouye's proposal.

Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew said the two votes could pave the way to a compromise. "I think the vote in the Senate today made it abundantly clear that we are going to need to work together on a bipartisan basis to find a middle ground," he told the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing held hours before the votes, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spoke out against the House-approved continuing resolution.

"The House-passed budget is, to say the least, not helpful," she said. If enacted, it would reduce the department's ability to deploy new technology, postpone rollout of Einstein 3, the next iteration of the federal network intrusion detection system, and would cut the transfer of funds to state fusion centers, she added.

A shutdown would be even worse, Napolitano said. While Transportation Security Agents would continue to man airports and the Customs and Border Protection agency wouldn't leave border crossings, "all of the backroom work that is necessary to support and maximize their efforts would probably also have to shut down. I think it would be a very destructive event."

For more:
- see how the Senate voted on the House-approved continuing resolution
- see how it voted on Inouye's proposal
- see a Senate Appropriations press release on Inouye's proposal

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