Sixteen thoughts on an averted shutdown

A bitter pill that Schumer is correct to swallow

1. Chuck Schumer signaled Thursday night that, over the objections a majority of his caucus, he and a critical mass of Senate Democrats will allow cloture to be invoked on a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through September.

2. This is a bitter pill for most Democrats. Schumer and any members he pulls with him are going to face massive backlash from progressive Twitter and from major party donors and activist group leaders, all of whom were itching for a fight.

3. Schumer has, in fact, done the right thing here. In particular, he is doing what a leader ought to do and carrying the weight for something that is unpopular with the base but that is the correct decision for his members.

4. I’ve been talking about appropriations strategy with my Politix podcast-mate Brian Beutler for weeks. Brian always wants to fight harder. But at least when this started, even he was saying that what he wanted was for House Democrats to be unanimously opposed to an appropriations deal that didn’t check DOGE. He acknowledged on the show that it wouldn’t be viable for a Senate minority to filibuster a CR that already passed the House. What he was banking on was the fact that it’s been a million years since House Republicans have been able to pass a CR on a party-line vote. He thought a hard line from Hakeem Jeffries would bring the GOP to the table.

5. I agreed with that strategy, Jeffries implemented that strategy, his caucus went along with it, and… the strategy didn’t work.

6. In fact, the strategy backfired, because in order to get a party-line bill through the House, the CR wound up being a not-quite-clean CR that shifts public policy to the right somewhat and also contains an odious rider impacting Washington, DC.

7. Once the House play failed, the menschy, correct thing for Jeffries to do would have been to say he thought it was a good strategy, but it didn’t work and now it’s time for Senate Dems to admit they don’t have the cards and fold.

8. Instead, backbench House Democrats largely spent the past few days posturing and calling for Senate Dems to filibuster the bill and force the government into a shutdown. From a narrow standpoint of self-interest, this made sense. The odds were good that Schumer would cave, and House Democrats could have it both ways — playing the hero to the base who got stabbed in the back by Schumer without dealing with the actual consequences of a shutdown.

9. Shutting the government down to halt DOGE did not make sense on a number of levels:

   1. If the problem with DOGE is they are laying off workers and curtailing programs that are vital and important, a shutdown also does those things!

   2. Under the circumstances of an appropriations lapse, Trump and Musk can just furlough 100 percent of the federal workers they would like to lay off and declare whoever they don’t want to lay off “essential,” and they’ve already achieved their endgame.

   3. Because the federal workers at the epicenter of the pushback against DOGE would all be either furloughed or else working without pay, pressure to cave to Trump would soon be coming from the very people Democrats are trying to help.

   4. Senior Trump officials have signaled, repeatedly, that they want to challenge the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. If the Supreme Court sides with them about that, then no additional legislation would change anything. If the Supreme Court rejects Trump’s argument, then much of this is taken care of right there.

10. A particularly upsetting aspect of all of this is that Republicans inserted a poison pill in the House bill ordering the DC government to cut its spending of our own local tax dollars by about $1 billion. I have been trying to read up and report on this, and nobody is entirely clear why House Republicans did this or how it’s supposed to work. I’m now roughly 70 percent sure they put it in just to create a hothouse environment among Democratic Party staffers and bait the Senate into a shutdown.

11. Regardless of the reason, this is now set to become law with chaotic impacts on our local police department and our public schools, including the one my son attends. I am incredibly worried about this personally. Susan Collins, who chairs the relevant appropriations subcommittee, also says that it’s bad, and my sincere hope is that she will move a separate piece of legislation lifting it. I assume there are GOP staffers who live in the city as well and probably don’t want to see cops and teachers chaotically laid off in the middle of the year. Maybe? I really hope so.

12. I really want to emphasize that even if you disagree with me about this, if your reaction to these events is to get mad at Chuck Schumer, you are to a large extent getting played. Lots of people are engaging in cheap position taking in favor of a “no” vote on cloture, but neither House Democrats nor the people voting “no” in the Senate nor the people getting mad on Twitter have an actual strategy for getting what the base wants out of this, which is some kind of act of Congress saying that Trump and Musk need to conduct the government differently.

13. The fact is, Democrats lost the election in November. They lost the White House. The lost the House. They lost the Senate.

14. It drives me crazy that the very same progressives who shit on Democrats for not being able to stop bad things Republicans do after they lose elections spend all the time before elections shitting on the idea of being more pragmatic and moderate and winning more seats. If there were four more House Democrats, none of whom supported any policy changes in a progressive direction whatsoever, that would still give Democrats a majority and the ability to block all kinds of GOP fuckery. That’s true on DOGE, it’s true on Medicaid and SNAP for billions of poor kids. It’s actually a really big deal. If you want to stop Republicans from doing bad things, you need to win races. You need to back moderates in red-leaning districts and encourage party leaders to take popular positions and win.

15. Donate money to good candidates. Elon Musk is trying to buy a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin soon, and Susan Crawford could really use your help. The whole Slow Boring slate is here.

16. We see once again that the filibuster is not the boon that moderate senators think it is. Their lives would be much easier if they could just do what frontline House members did and vote “no” on a CR they think is bad, and allow the majority to pass it. Responsible party government and majority rules are good.