Democrats are gearing up to reject a GOP stopgap funding bill and potentially spark a government shutdown. What happens then, no one seems to know.
Two weeks ahead of the key deadline, party leaders are staking out a rhetorical hard line demanding that their Republican counterparts come to the negotiating table to discuss concessions on health care and other issues.
They released an alternative funding patch Wednesday that extends government funding through the end of October and tacks on a host of policy demands, including an extension of health care subsidies, the repeal of Medicaid cuts in the GOP megabill and more.
Democrats hope the counteroffer will kindle bipartisan talks. But Republicans are instead accusing them of hypocrisy, citing all the times they insisted the GOP had to swallow a “clean” short-term funding bill in past shutdown fights.
Still, under tremendous pressure from their base to show that they are willing to fight President Donald Trump, Democrats are flirting with a politically risky shutdown without a firm exit plan or even an idea of what victory might look like.
“We may not have the luxury of a victory scenario,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse. I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”
Thus far, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have focused on the lowest common denominator uniting the various factions inside their ranks: demanding negotiations in return for Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown — which are necessary due to the Senate filibuster.
But their GOP counterparts, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have been more than happy to turn the tables and paint Democrats as the ones making unreasonable demands.
Already chafing at the lack of GOP outreach, Democrats were further inflamed by Trump, who said on Friday that Republicans shouldn’t “even bother dealing with them” on a funding deal, Senate math notwithstanding.
“We have a lot of diverse views in the caucus, but we’re all professional politicians and an iron law in politics is that if you want someone’s vote, you have to ask what it would take to get it,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is in line to be the next Democratic whip. “And they haven’t even asked.”
Unlike in March, when Schumer flinched in a similarstandoff, party leaders are now betting they’re on firmer political ground for a fight. But it’s still not clear just how comfortable Democrats, who have generally tried to portray themselves as Capitol Hill’s “adults in the room,” will feel as a possible Oct. 1 shutdown grows nearer — or after one comes to pass.
Asked Wednesday night if he was willing to shut the government down, Schumer bristled: “Ask the Republicans if they are willing to shut the government down.”
Democrats could lose some of their own members on the GOP bill. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has already vowed to support it, and several other Democratic senators have yet to put themselves in the “no” column with the whip effort still underway.
Jeffries privately huddled with swing-district lawmakers Wednesday morning to hear out their concerns. Most of them, while publicly declining to commit to opposing the stopgap funding bill, are staking out conditions for support that the GOP is unlikely to give them this month — or ever.
There are few signs from Republicans that they will be any more amenable to opposition demands if Senate Democrats reject the seven-week GOP funding bill and the government potentially shuts down.
Asked about the idea that Republicans had to give Democrats something in return for their votes, the typically affable Thune snapped Wednesday, arguing that Republicans supported similar funding bills more than a dozen times in recent years.
“What we’re talking about right now is giving the appropriators a chance to actually pass bills. … Is that difficult to understand?” Thune said. “Where are we supposed to do big policy initiatives on a seven-week extension to fund the government?”
Thune indicated this week that Schumer is free to call him or come to his office for a meeting. Democrats believe the South Dakota Republican, as majority leader, has to initiate the negotiations.
Meanwhile, there is hardly a firm consensus on what Democrats would consider a worthy trade for their votes beyond a general emphasis on health care. Most Democrats agree they need to push for an extension of health insurance subsidies that are set to expire next year as a baseline demand. Others want to push for the unlikely reversal of the Medicaid cuts from the GOP’s “big, beautiful” bill. Still others want firm protections against future Trump administration attempts to withhold congressionally approved spending.
“We expect them to come and negotiate and to live up to what they told their voters back in ’24, not even a year ago, what they were going to do, which was lower costs. And health care is a huge part of that,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told reporters Wednesday.
Many of those demands were included in Democrats’ alternative stopgap released Wednesday. But GOP leaders insist there is no way to cut a deal in the time remaining — even on extending the expiring health subsidies, which has some Republican support. Schumer and Jeffries have been cagey about possibly swallowing a short-term funding punt now in exchange for potential negotiations later.
Asked Wednesday evening if getting a commitment to work on issues like the health care subsidies would be enough to get Democrats on board with a stopgap, Schumer did not definitively reject the idea.
“We have two weeks,” he said. “They should sit down and talk to us and we maybe can get to a good proposal, let’s see. But when they don’t talk to us, there’s no hope of getting to a good proposal.”
And pressed Wednesday about whether their calls for “bipartisan negotiation” meant that any talks had to be concluded by Sept. 30 or if ongoing talks would be enough, several Democratic senators declined to answer directly.
“That’s a very smart question. I’m not sure I know the answer,” said Schatz, adding that Thune’s “come by anytime” rhetoric is not the way things should work.
More generally, a sense of gung-ho enthusiasm about a shutdown fight was hard to detect inside the Democratic ranks.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers who would be furloughed in a shutdown, suggested it was a little too early to go to the mattresses.
“What is today — the 17th of September?” he said. “Let’s have a debate about the alternative.”
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader who joined Schumer to advance the GOP funding bill in March, indicated Wednesday that he expects to vote against Republicans’ proposal this time.
But asked if he was comfortable going into a shutdown, Durbin rejected the premise.
“There’s another option available,” he said. “And that’s bipartisan negotiation.”
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