After more than 40 days, the end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history is in sight after eight Democratic senators voted with Republicans Monday evening to reopen the federal government through Jan. 30. The final step will come as soon as Wednesday in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson will have to hold his narrow GOP majority together to get the funding bill through.
But while the shutdown-induced disruptions, which included canceled flights and unpaid food benefits, may be coming to an end, the Democrats’ intraparty feuding may just be getting started.
The Senate resolution came after weeks of relative Democratic unity – with party leaders insisting they would not vote to fund the government until Republicans extended Affordable Care Act subsidies. It also came on the heels of big Election Day wins for Democrats and polling that suggested a majority of American voters agreed the subsidies should be extended. Many Democrats were both surprised and angry that the eight senators defected, without winning any real concessions from Republicans that they couldn’t have gotten six weeks ago.
Why We Wrote This
Disruptions to food aid and air travel were among the pressure points that prompted eight Democratic senators to join Republicans in voting to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. A House vote, expected soon, would officially re-open the government.
The measure funds agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs for the fiscal year and the rest of the government through Jan. 30. It requires that federal employees fired during the shutdown be rehired with back pay. On healthcare, Democrats secured a promise from Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring a vote to the floor on ACA subsidies next month – essentially the same deal he offered 16 days into the shutdown. There is no guarantee that a vote will even be held in the House.
“This was how it was always going to end,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told the Monitor Monday evening.
Some Democratic senators seemed to conclude they’d already wrung the maximum political advantage out of the situation, showing voters that the party, which has been shut out of power since January, was capable of fighting back against President Donald Trump and the GOP. Given their lack of leverage, many Democrats believed they were unlikely to secure significant policy wins. And the tension between political point-scoring and concerns about the shutdown’s tangible harms only grew as those harms came into sharper focus.
“We demonstrated two things. One, Democratic unity about health care. Number two, Democratic unity about fighting the lawlessness of Trump,” says Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont. Although there was “real pain” around the shutdown, Senator Welch says he would have preferred to continue holding out.
“We were all in uncharted territory, but we’ve got uncharted … lawless behavior by a president. So my judgment was, it was worth holding the line,” he says. At the same time, he acknowledges that a guarantee on ACA subsidies was probably out of reach once Mr. Trump told congressional Republicans not to negotiate.
“Any good general, if the strategy isn’t working, you change tactics. And particularly you change tactics if your own troops are at risk,” said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and voted to end the shutdown, on MSNBC Monday. “There was collateral damage to the American people. At the same time, the goal wasn’t being achieved.”
Shutting down the government actually gave Mr. Trump “more power,” said Mr. King, as the president sought to pick which federal employees got paid and to block Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments, freezing a program 42 million Americans rely on to help them buy groceries.
Still, despite headlines about Democratic senators “caving,” Republican lawmakers don’t have much to gloat over, either. Their party took more of the blame for the shutdown, according to public opinion polls, and difficult decisions lie ahead for them on health care and other spending ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The Jan. 30 expiration of the current funding bill means lawmakers could be right back in the same spot in less than three months.
The measure passed the Senate in a 60-40 vote, with five Democratic senators joining Republicans and Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Senator King, who have voted in favor of funding the government for weeks. The five new “yes” votes came from Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who has announced his retirement, along with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. None is up for reelection next year.
These eight senators faced immediate criticism from their peers. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group, labeled them “the hateful eight,” and the progressive group Our Revolution called on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down as Democratic leader. Senator Kaine suggested that some Democrats were quietly grateful to the eight who voted to end the shutdown, and that more would have liked to do so.
But when asked by a reporter Monday if Mr. Schumer had blessed the defections, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said: “That I can confirm is not true.”
Mr. Schumer may face the brunt of Democratic criticism in the days and weeks ahead, just as he did in March when he instructed his caucus to avoid a government shutdown altogether and vote in favor of a funding measure. House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries said in a press conference Monday that he supported the Senate leader, which was a departure from March, when Mr. Jeffries said “next question” in response to a similar query.
Some senators in the Capitol Monday expressed their support for Mr. Schumer. “So far, I think he’s done a good job,” said Senator Cortez Masto, who voted to reopen the government Monday. Others seem wary. Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin said she was “disappointed,” and argued that Democrats are failing to “meet the moment.”
But this was always an “asymmetric war,” says Jim Kessler, a former policy director for Mr. Schumer and co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. And in such a situation, the minority party that forces the shutdown only has one tool at its disposal, he says, and that’s communication – shaping public perceptions.
“I think Democrats have achieved something really significant that they’ll realize when the dust settles,” says Mr. Kessler. And that is message discipline: they remained focused on health care, and got the public focused on it as well. “As premiums go up, [voters will] remember who did it. It was Donald Trump. And looking at the long game, that’s a significant accomplishment.”
Still, Mr. Kessler wishes Senate Democrats had held out a little bit longer – even though he thinks it’s unlikely they would have gained anything on policy.
“I think there was gas left in the tank for a fight,” he says, “and the fight matters.”
