Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is throwing a curveball into the shutdown fight as he plans to bring a full-year spending bill for the Pentagon to the floor on Thursday, effectively daring Democrats to oppose it as part of their push to keep health care at the forefront of the impasse.

Democrats have been almost completely united in their opposition to the GOP’s “clean” bill to fund the government through Nov. 21. The Senate voted against the House-passed continuing resolution for the ninth time on Wednesday, with another vote on the stopgap expected on Thursday.

But Thursday’s vote on the Defense bill represents more of a gamble, and leaders on Wednesday largely said they hadn’t yet decided what to do.

The full-year bill is the result of a bipartisan appropriations process and passed out of committee on a 26-3 vote earlier this year. And it would fund military paychecks that could be on the line again if the shutdown drags on until the end of the month.

At the same time, Democrats want to appear steadfast in their opposition to the Trump administration, and note that they’ve gotten no guarantees about what Republicans could attach to the Defense bill once it clears Thursday’s procedural hurdle.

“It seems like it’s a hard vote,” Thune told The Hill on Wednesday. “Because they all say they want a normal appropriations process, and we’re trying to give them one. I get it, it’s in the middle of a shutdown,........

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