Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) released the following statement after Senate Democrats blocked the thirteenth bipartisan vote to re-open the federal government and end the government shutdown. This comes as yesterday, the Senator issued a stark warning to Oklahomans bracing for the November 1^st, 2025, funding cliff which is, “set to put many U.S. households at risk of new hardship.”

“I’ve now voted 13 times to re-open the federal government, restore pay for essential federal workers, and get critical services like SNAP and WIC back online for Oklahoma families in need ahead of the November 1^st cliff,” said Senator Mullin. “A bipartisan CR should be a no-brainer, and I hate that Oklahoma families are facing the consequences of a harmful government shutdown. As I’ve said, the Senate requires 60 votes to fund the government, and we have 52 Republicans and 3 Democrats on the board. I urge 5 more Senate Democrats to join our bipartisan effort to end the Schumer Shutdown immediately.”

Reminder: Oklahomans are facing a cliff on November 1^st:

• If Congress does not end to the Schumer Shutdown before Saturday, Nov 1^st, 2025, food assistance (SNAP) for low-income families will start to run out. 
• Federal funding will stop for early childhood education programs at Head Start, which support 800,000 children under the age of six. 
• While President Trump has done his best to minimize hardship on Americans, including supplementing the WIC nutrition assistance program with emergency cash for low-income mothers and babies— those funds will dry up on Saturday if nothing changes.
• U.S. military families are also on track to miss a paycheck this Friday 10/31, while many civilian employees will miss full paychecks today and Thursday of this week.

Background:

• On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats shut down the federal government after refusing to support a clean 7-week funding bill to keep the lights on until November 21^st, 2025.

• Since then, the U.S. Senate has taken 13 votes to re-open the federal government, fund WIC and SNAP, and stop inflicting pain on the American people. Senators Mullin and Lankford have voted to re-open the government all 13 times.

• On Monday, NBC News reported that the largest federal workers union representing 820,000 federal employees called, “for lawmakers to pass a short-term spending measure to end the government shutdown immediately, urging Democrats to abandon their current position and join Republicans in supporting a stopgap solution.” 

• This clean CR is the same language Chuck Schumer authored last year and has supported four times—most recently in March 2025. It has no Republican policy riders. Senate Democrats supported this clean CR 13 times under the Biden administration.

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