Senate Democrats want a vote on an alternative stopgap funding bill as they look for leverage against Republicans with two days to go until a government shutdown.

The lawmakers emerged from a closed-door lunch on Wednesday and said that they would not help advance the House GOP-passed, seven-month funding measure unless Republicans would agree to give them amendment votes — including on a 30-day, alternative short-term funding bill.

Democrats do have some leeway to make demands, despite being in the minority: In order to meet the Friday night deadline to avoid a shutdown, Republicans will need an agreement from all 100 senators to speed up consideration of the House GOP funding bill, which would otherwise take days to get through the chamber.

Republicans also need at least eight Democrats to join them in overcoming procedural hurdles to be able to move to a final vote on the funding bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR. Republicans can ultimately pass the funding bill by a simple majority, meaning they would not need Democratic votes for the final step.

“Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR,” Schumer said during a Senate floor speech.

“We should vote on that,” Schumer said. “I hope — I hope — our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

Schumer made no mention during his floor speech of wanting an amendment vote on the short-term stopgap, but senators emerging from their Wednesday afternoon lunch meeting said that is the crux of their strategy. That could also give them a potential offramp to vote on the final House-passed proposal if Republicans agree to a vote on a short-term stopgap — even if that stopgap, as expected, fails.

“We want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two, so that’s what we are insisting on to vote for cloture,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who confirmed the weekslong stopgap would be one of the amendments Democrats pushed for.

Republicans currently have one Democratic “yes” vote: Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, meaning seven more are necessary to get over the 60 vote hurdle. Several Democrats have refused to say how they will vote, leaving open a potential pathway to approving the Republican-endorsed deal to avert a shutdown if Democratic leadership can reach a larger deal on amendment votes.

But there’s also signs that opposition within the caucus is only continuing to grow.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) became the latest Democrat to say he will oppose the House plan on Wednesday.

“I cannot support this Continuing Resolution. Congressional Republicans’ CR will hurt Vermont families, veterans, businesses and farmers by making drastic cuts and blocking Congress’ ability to respond to Trump’s reckless tariffs,” Welch said.

“As a Democrat, I want the federal government to work — not to shut down. Republicans need to come back to the table and pass the clean one-month CR that allows budget negotiations to continue,” he added.

President Donald Trump’s pick for the No. 2 post at the White House budget office — a position key to orchestrating Trump’s orders to freeze funding — has cleared a critical committee vote, sending the nomination to the Senate floor.

In a 11-10 vote, the Senate Budget Committee backed Dan Bishop’s nomination to serve as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Senate is expected to vote to confirm Bishop in the next few weeks, officially seating him as right-hand man to OMB Director Russ Vought.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the committee’s top Democrat, said before the Wednesday committee vote that Democratic senators are “troubled” by Bishop’s support for Trump’s orders to freeze funding Congress previously passed into law. Merkley also questioned Bishop’s promise to follow the direction of Vought, who led OMB in withholding aid to Ukraine and other efforts during Trump’s first presidency.

“What I did witness through his testimony is that he’s an acolyte of Vought, and Vought is a determined Trumpian minion who will follow Trump’s direction to break the law and the Constitution,” Merkley said.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee already endorsed Bishop, who was a House lawmaker until this year and has been serving as a senior adviser to the White House budget office during the confirmation process.

Throughout his Senate vetting, Bishop repeatedly told lawmakers that it wouldn’t be his job at OMB to judge whether Trump’s orders are lawful under the decades-old impoundment law — which allows presidents to withhold money Congress has appropriated — despite his credentials as a lawyer who ran for attorney general of North Carolina last year. He did tell senators last week that there is “a compelling argument that there is power in the executive in the nature of impoundment,” as lawsuits seeking to block Trump’s funding freezes are being argued in courtrooms throughout the country.

“Exactly what its contours are, I don’t know,” Bishop told the Budget Committee in his confirmation hearing before the panel this month. “But I support the president’s plan to use impoundment to get federal government spending in line.”

House Republican tax writers were clamming up Wednesday about their tax plans, a sign that negotiations were getting serious as they prepared to go into a second day of close-door talks.

“I’m not talking about anything associated with our ongoing deliberations,” said the normally chatty Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah). “We’re in a new phase — everything was hypothetical three months ago.”

“I hope you’re not finding anybody who is willing to talk.”

Moore’s comments came as lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee try to hash out their draft of a plan to address the expiration of some 40 expiring tax credits, along with additional tax proposals offered by President Donald Trump.

They met Monday for a lengthy policy session, amid Chair Jason Smith’s desire to get a bill — which would also include Trump’s energy, border and defense priorities — to the president’s desk quickly. The Senate, though, is just getting started.

Negotiations in the House have gotten far enough along that Ways and Means has begun eyeing when they might be able to unveil their plans and bring it before the committee to formally approve.

Some Republicans hope committee action would help generate momentum in other committees despite major questions over lawmakers’ stomach for spending cuts that are supposed to accompany their tax plans, and even though negotiations with the Senate over how to proceed are off to a creaky start.