The Democrats’ fight over their shutdown strategy is extending all the way to the upper echelons of the Senate.

The Friday vote to get the House GOP funding patch over a procedural hurdle divided Senate Democratic leadership, with 10 members of the full caucus helping break a filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stressed to reporters on Thursday, after he announced his decision to help advance the bill, that he was letting each member come to their own decision — an indication that he wasn’t going to try to squeeze anyone to oppose or support the bill.

But it still marked a high-profile split within Schumer’s leadership team.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Dick Durbin of Illinois joined Schumer in helping advance the House Republican bill, just hours before the midnight shutdown deadline. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign arm, also voted to advance the bill.

The other members at the Senate leadership table — Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Mark Warner of Virginia, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Cory Booker of New Jersey — voted against breaking a filibuster, alongside and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

The rest of the Senate Democratic Caucus opposed the procedural motion, too.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is facing a defamation lawsuit filed by one of the four men she has publicly accused of sexual abuse in a floor speech, in a case that could test the legal protections members of Congress have for their official conduct.

The South Carolinian took to the House floor last month to accuse her ex-fiance, Charleston businessman Patrick Bryant, and three other men of rape, sex trafficking and nonconsensually filming sex acts with her and others.

Now Brian Musgrave, one of the other men Mace named on the House floor, is suing the member of Congress for defamation.

In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in South Carolina, he categorically denied the allegations leveled against him by Mace — saying he was not present during any alleged events Mace described and did not “film” or “incapacitate” anyone — adding she “and her team destroyed the lives” of Musgrave and his family.

The suit seeks an unspecified award for compensatory and punitive damages to be determined by a jury “sufficient to impress upon the Defendant the seriousness of her conduct and to deter such similar conduct in the future.”

Mace’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The legal action also seeks to carve out an exception from the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, which provides a legal shield for members of Congress for acts taken as part of their roles as lawmakers, including “any Speech or Debate in either House.”

The clause “does not transform the floor of Congress into a sanctuary for defamation, nor does it protect Congresswoman Mace’s extra-Congressional defamatory statements surrounding her speech,” Musgrave’s suit asserts.

His lawsuit also points to some of Mace’s actions outside the House floor, including a draft of the speech circulating and posts on social media.

In her February speech, Mace claimed she was speaking out because South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson had declined to act upon evidence of abuse that she said she provided. But the top state prosecutor said Mace’s accusations of improper conduct by his office were “categorically false,” claiming the office had “no knowledge” of Mace’s alleged assault until her speech on the House floor.

Wilson and Mace are both considering bids for South Carolina governor in the state’s 2026 election.

Shortly after Mace’s public speech, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division confirmed that it is investigating Bryant. Bryant has categorically denied Mace’s allegations.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sidestepped a question about the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — a stunning demonstration of the breach that has emerged between the two New York Democrats over a looming government shutdown.

“Next question,” Jeffries told reporters when asked if there should be new leadership in the Senate. He also declined to answer a question on whether he had confidence in Schumer and said that while he’d been in touch with his fellow leader, their conversations would “remain private.”

Schumer said Thursday he planned to vote to advance a GOP-written funding patch to avert a shutdown, which is said was the better of two bad options.

“It is a false choice that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans have been presenting, between their reckless and partisan spending bill and a government shutdown,” Jeffries responded Friday. “We do not support a bill that is designed to hurt the American people.”

When asked whether Schumer had acquiesced to Trump, Jeffries said there was still time — the vote had not taken place yet, and some senators were still undeclared, he added.