Senate Democrats have boxed themselves into a corner, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is trying to slip out.
Schumer announced Wednesday afternoon that Democrats would reject a House-passed government plan to keep the government funded past the Friday deadline through the end of the fiscal year, September 30.
President Donald Trump and his administration went all-in to ensure the bill received majority support in the House Tuesday, the first major test this Congress for Trump and his legislative team.
But in the Senate, although Republicans hold a majority with 53 seats, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SC) needs 60 votes to advance the legislation.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR.”
However, only one day before government funding lapses, Schumer is relenting to reality — Trump and Republicans hold all the cards, and Democrats have a lot to lose by gambling with shutdown politics.
The Hill reports that Senate Democrats are giving private assurances they will not allow a government shutdown, despite the activist wing with its growing chokehold over the party demanding further resistance to Trump.
The report says despite Schumer insisting on an amendment vote on a shorter-term CR to give appropriators more time to negotiate a massive omnibus bill, he is giving his “centrists” space to vote to end debate and proceed to final passage.
Citing Democrats familiar with internal deliberations, The Hill reports Schumer’s Wednesday positioning against the CR was a maneuver “designed to save face.”
As things stand, absent a unanimous consent agreement to forego parliamentary timing hurdles, the soonest a vote on final passage could take place is Saturday evening. Schumer is hoping he can wrangle an amendment vote from Thune in exchange for Democrats allowing the Senate to wrap up the vote before the Friday deadline.
Yet a vote on a doomed amendment is a pathetic consolation prize, certainly with a politically-toxic shutdown in play.
As Breitbart News reported Wednesday, in exchange for an amendment vote, Democrats have suggested they would allow a time agreement to enable expedited consideration of the bill. Democrats would like a vote on a shorter-term CR (in the form of what is called an “amendment in the nature of a substitute” that replaces the underlying bill itself) as well as an amendment to tie Trump’s hands and prevent spending under appropriated levels or slash waste, fraud, and abuse.
Thune almost certainly will not allow a vote on an amendment that might pass, although he publicly has expressed an openness to some sort of amendment agreement.
But by playing shutdown roulette in which the best-case scenario is a protest vote on an amendment, Democrats are revealing their utter haplessness in the early days of Trump’s second administration.
While Senate Democrats delay a seemingly inevitable CR from passing, Thune and the Senate continue confirming Trump’s nominees.
And by talking tough only to cave later, Democrats are likely to further infuriate their activist base, always ravenous for radicalism.
The timing is unclear, but Trump appears set to receive a big win before the weekend is up. And Democrats, still unsure how to operate in the second age of Trump, will continue wandering in the wilderness.
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
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