It Looks Like Democrats Want a Shutdown

As Ed wrote earlier today, Senate Democrats didn’t have a lot of appealing options before them when it came to the looming government shutdown. But as of this afternoon it looks like Sen. Chuck Schumer is ready to reject the House passed bill and effectively lead his party into the shutdown two days from now.

“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. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said on the floor, calling for a one-month funding bill that provides more time to negotiate a deal.

“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” he said. “”I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

The government shutdown will start at midnight Friday unless something changes. As for Sen. Schumer’s hope that Republican colleagues will join him, he already knows that won’t happen because the House has adjourned and members have gone home.

Any changes in the House bill or another extension would require the House to return and approve it, which is highly unlikely. Republican leaders deliberately adjourned the chamber and left town after passing the legislation on Tuesday to effectively force the Senate to accept their funding legislation.

Senate Dems held a meeting today just before the announcement during which they yelled at each other about the next move. They have lots of wants but no real plan for getting anything.

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said Democrats “are unified in not wanting to shut down the government, and what we need to do is vote on the short-term” bill for one month…

Some Democratic senators and aides worry that supporting the bill would set a bad precedent — they would effectively be telling House Republicans that they can write government funding measures without Democrats at the negotiating table.

Schumer is under pressure from House Democrats and from activists who have been urging Senate Dems to oppose the bill passed by House Republicans. They want war and it looks like they are going to get it. 

Senate Democrats are under pressure from grassroots liberals to join House Democrats in withholding their votes to fund the government. Activists want Democrats to negotiate language in funding bills that explicitly bar Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service from impounding any congressionally mandated funds, in a bid to slow the Trump administration’s unilateral layoffs and cuts.

“This is really the only significant point of leverage the congressional Democrats have this year,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the grassroots liberal group Indivisible. “It’s crazy to me that any Democrat would be like, ‘Yeah, let’s vote for it.’ Have some respect for yourself.”…

“Until Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans stand down and stop holding people’s money hostage, there is no reason whatsoever for Democratic lawmakers to help them,” Britt Jacovich, a spokeswoman for MoveOn, said in a statement…

“This is their bill,” Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Georgia) said. “If there’s a government shutdown, they’re in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. It’s their shutdown.”

Throwing sand in the gears at this moment while also pretending they aren’t responsible and don’t want a shutdown really doesn’t add up. As Sen. Thune put it, there’s only one option available with little more than 48 hours to go.

“I’m hoping that we’ll have a requisite number of Democrats in order to do that,” he said Tuesday. “And I think anything else they put out there is a smoke screen, because at this point, there’s really one solution on the table that keeps the government funded.”

Even the NY Times seems a bit confused about how this course of action is supposed to work in Democrats’ favor.

The standoff puts Senate Democrats at risk of being blamed for any shutdown even as they complain about Trump administration disruptions to federal agencies…

With two days left before the shutdown, there is still time for a reversal by Democrats when the potential implications of a shutdown become clearer.

Even putting aside the issue of blame for a moment, if the goal is to stop DOGE, shutting down the government seems like a counterintuitive way to go about it. What’s to stop DOGE from capitalizing on the shutdown to create a permanent reduction in force? Some Democrats seem aware this is a possibility but they are ready to roll the dice anyway.

It almost goes without saying that Democrats would never attempt this if their friends in the media didn’t always have their backs. If a shutdown happens, their only hope is to blame Republicans and you can bet the media will bend over backwards to help convince people Dems are not to blame. Watch and see. By Friday, if this hasn’t been resolved, every newspaper will be screaming about the “Republican shutdown.”