hostage taking and brinkmanship, with their offer to go to conference committee, which would all but assure we'd be watching another thirty hours or so of debate on the Senate floor.

Reid Refuses To Entertain Conference Committee Plan:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in no uncertain terms said Senate Democrats would not go to a conference committee with House Republicans unless they send a clean continuing resolution to the Senate.

"We will not go to conference with a gun to our head," Reid said late Monday night on the Senate floor. "The first thing the House has to do is pass a clean six-week C.R. They have that before them they can do that right now."

Earlier in the evening the House Rules Committee began meeting to discuss a rule that would let House Republicans request a conference committee with the Senate to negotiate a government funding bill. That move came with little more than an hour hour left before the deadline to prevent a government shutdown.

Reid reiterated in his floor remarks that the only way for Republicans to work with Democrats was if they passed a clean continuing resolution.

"We will not go to conference until we get a clean CR," Reid said, reiterating the Democrats' line to demand a bill that would continue to fund the government at current levels.