Jacksonville, FL — As a compromise spending plan easily passed the Senate Thursday, ahead of a partial government shutdown deadline, 16 Senators did vote no-- including Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
He issued a statement afterwards, explaining his decision, saying it has to do with a lack of disaster funding for Florida.
"Three weeks ago, Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly to help Florida communities devastated by Hurricane Michael. But now congressional negotiators failed to include disaster funding in this package so they can use it as leverage in an upcoming effort to lift spending caps. I will not support using devastated communities in Florida as pawns for some future legislative deal," says Rubio.
Rubio also addressed a White House statement that the President would sign this deal and then declare a national emergency to get more funding for a border wall.
Rubio says he's skeptical that's something he can support.
"We have a crisis at our southern border, but no crisis justifies violating the Constitution. Today’s national emergency is border security. But a future president may use this exact same tactic to impose the Green New Deal," says Rubio.
However, he did say he will wait to see exactly what statutory or constitutional power the President uses, before taking any definitive stance.