WASHINGTON ― Senate Democrats have a critical decision to make this week: will they vote for a stopgap spending bill averting a federal government shutdown if Republicans don’t agree to their health care demands?
Earlier this year, 10 Democratic senators voted to advance a GOP-crafted bill funding the government, paving the way for its passage: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.). Along with Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, also voted to advance the bill.
All eyes will once again be on those same Democrats ahead of the Sept. 30 funding deadline.
The Senate will vote on Monday evening on a House-passed bill keeping the government running until November. That measure does not include a key Democratic demand: the extension of expanded subsidies for people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. If those subsidies lapse, premiums will skyrocket for millions of Americans next year.
For the moment, Senate Democrats are united in their strategy. Asked Monday how many senators in their caucus are potentially considering voting with Republicans on the bill, a Senate Democrat who requested anonymity told HuffPost, “Fucking zero.”
The senator added, “If they [offer us] take it or leave it, we will not lose any votes.”
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday to discuss government funding, but no deal was reached averting a shutdown. Both sides are dug in to their positions, and Republicans have called Democrats’ health care demands unreasonable.
“We have very large differences,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting.
The New York senator faced intense intraparty criticism for how he handled the last spending fight in March. After initially saying that his caucus would filibuster the GOP spending bill, Schumer backed down and voted with Republicans to keep the government running. He says this time is different because Republicans have effectively been shutting down federal agencies and firing people en masse.
“They’re doing it anyway,” Schumer said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They’re laying off all these people. The budget they proposed says another 300,000 federal workers should be laid off. They laid off 80,000 in the Veterans Administration. They’re trying to intimidate the American people and us. But the bottom line is, if they fire all these people, first, the courts have brought a lot of them back because what they did was illegal.”
Durbin, Peters and Shaheen are all senior Democratic senators who are retiring next year, giving them more political leeway on contentious votes.
Durbin and Peters both said on Monday that some sort of commitment from GOP leaders to work on extending ACA subsidies could help keep the government open.
“There’s got to be some framework ― not just, ‘Trust us,’ but also, actually a framework that’s being discussed,” Peters told HuffPost.
Asked earlier Monday how she would vote if Republicans refuse to budge on Obamacare subsidies, Shaheen said she first needed to see the outcome of Trump’s meeting with top Democrats.
“I’m not going to decide what I’m going to do until we see how this meeting goes this afternoon,” Shaheen said during an interview with CNN.
“We ought to be able to keep government open and ensure people can stay on their health insurance,” Sheheen said.
The New Hampshire Democrat has struck deals with the Trump administration before. In July, she voted for Mike Waltz’s nomination as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, which led to his confirmation, in exchange for the release of $75 million in previously authorized foreign aid for Haiti and Nigeria.
Cortez Masto and Hassan are both moderate Democrats who have crossed party lines in the past. King has also long been a critic of federal government shutdowns, expressing concern over their negative impact on both federal employees and ordinary citizens. All three have so far echoed their caucus in pushing for health care to be addressed as part of the government funding bill. They’ve been tight-lipped about how they would vote if that doesn’t happen, though.
Meanwhile, of the 10 senators in the Democratic caucus who voted to avert a government shutdown in March, Schatz is the only one who has publicly suggested that he would be a no this time if Republicans refuse to negotiate a bipartisan deal.
“Trump said yesterday that he doesn’t need to work with Democrats. If that’s the case I wish him the best. I’m a no,” Schatz wrote in a social media post earlier this month.
Fetterman is also the only Democrat who is joining Republicans in voting for the short-term spending bill this week. Fetterman said last week that “despite [Republicans’] refusal to restore health care, I am unwilling to vote to shut down our government and unleash massive, national chaos.”
While Senate GOP leadership has suggested the possibility of future negotiations over the fate of the expiring ACA subsidies, they maintain that the issue shouldn’t be tied to government funding.
“The ball is in their court,” Senate Majority Leader Thune (R-S.D.) said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There is a bill sitting in the Senate right now. This decision, in my judgment, is up to a handful of Democrats. We need eight Democrats to pass it through the Senate.”