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Senate Democrats Vote to Shutdown Federal Government
Working late into the night, the US Senate has rejected advancing a bill that would fund the federal government for the next 30 days. That means the government will technically shut down at midnight Eastern Time.
Senate Democratic leadership opposed the bill in an attempt to force Republicans to accept their terms on DACA. Sixty votes were needed for passage, but 48 senators voted against it.
Four Republicans — Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul — voted against advancing the continuing resolution. Five Democrats — Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, Doug Jones, Joe Manchin, and Claire McCaskill — broke with their party and voted for the bill. Arizona Senator John McCain was absent for health reasons.
“This is completely unfair and uncompassionate for my Democratic colleagues to filibuster government funding, harm our troops, and jeopardize health coverage for nine million children because extreme elements of their base want illegal immigration to crowd out every other priority,” Senate Majority Leader McConnell said.
Serious effects of a shutdown won’t be felt until government employees are scheduled to return to work Monday morning. There is still a chance a compromise could be reached before that time.
Published in Politics
“Regular Order”
Not that we will see that anytime soon from this cast of cartoon characters and dolts.
Good point. It is complicated. In certain areas of the government such as defense and defense-related areas, yes, it makes sense intuitively that there would be a many Republican employees. And the FBI and law enforcement and the courts as well. I’ll bet it breaks with nonessential and essential employees. :) However, all of the people I’ve known in the EPA and National Parks Service and a few other branches of the federal government were Democrats, and openly so.
The District of Columbia always seems to vote Democratic. To which someone will say that the middle-class federal employees do not live inside the city so it’s not necessarily indicative of the party leanings of the federal employees. :)
I think the areas around the capital are also strongly Democratic–Arlington, Virginia, for example–and that accounts for a lot of federal employees.
I think this is the real news. It’s one year into the Republicans having control of all of the legislative arms of government and they can’t even get a budget process into gear. This is the first time we’ve had a government shutdown with one party holding all of the levers of power.
The name-calling in this thread (and elsewhere) against the Democrats might be emotionally satisfying, but it distracts from the real core problem here: the Republicans (especially Congressional leadership) has no real agenda other than tax cuts, gun rights, and gutting the EPA. And they don’t have the courage to even take baby steps outside of that comfort zone.
No amount of insulting Democrats can create a non-existent GOP agenda out of thin air.
One would think that a former head of the House Budget Committee (*cough* Paul Ryan) would be the perfect person to restart the normal budget process. But one would be, sadly, very wrong.
I would caution against reading too much into those no votes.
Most of them probably recognized at some point, either before voting or during, that the measure was going to fail. At that point, their vote is inconsequential either way, so they can use the opportunity to “make a statement” (or less charitably, engage in moral preening).
I think there needs to be more overall awareness in the public that the outcomes of most of these votes are clear before they start, and especially when it’s clear that a bill is going down, individual Congressmen have the freedom to take a “cost-free” symbolic vote that they might not have taken had their vote actually been needed.
This explains how Congress could pass the “Obamacare repeal” bill several years ago when Obama was in office, but fail to do the same once Trump was in office: one attempt was guaranteed to fail, so the vote was “free”; the other one actually counted.
Exactly. We are supposed to believe that the budgetary debate could not have begun months ago. Everything is a crisis these days.
That’s what happens when politics combines with instant media.
But don’t forget that about 85% of federal employees work outside the DC region.
Pravda Radio, I mean NPR, is still broadcasting.
This shutdown ain’t extreme enough.
It was pointed out on Fox News last night that McConnell also voted “No” as a procedural matter: You can only move to table something and revive it later for a vote if you voted with the majority of votes cast (or some such parliamentary requirement). McConnell is a master parliamentarian, but parliamentary expertise is no substitute for core principles. McConnell’s expertise blinds him to how silly this all is to the rest of America that the Senate cannot pass a budget by a simple majority that the voters gave the Republicans. The filibuster rule most go. I understand the logic of it when, unlike the House, the makeup of the Senate may bear no relationship to the current mood of the country. But this is a sad place to freeze government when all you are doing is keeping progressive initiatives in place.
No, no, no.
Shumer: Let the 700,000 young adults who were dragged here by their parents when they were children stay, but not allowing their parents who broke the law to be legalized through them. Punish the parents who broke the law, not the young adults who were brought here as children. That’s an 80% approval issue nationally, and a majority agreement among Republicans.
Trump: Close down the government because you are not willing to agree to a vote on the narrow issue of the 700,000 young people.
I agree with a majority of Republicans that we should not punish young people for the sins of their parents.
They object to a CR because the Armed Forces need regular budgeting. We need to enact appropriation bills, not pass CR’s that we’re made popular by Harry Reid.
You are absolutely right. We must return to “Regular Order.”
So Schumer says we should send the parents home and separate them from their young adult offspring?
But we must. Our laws do not allow the children of thieves to keep stolen money because, though the children did nothing wrong, allowing such would encourage parents to steal for their family’s sake. Likewise, rewarding parents for bringing children illegally into the US encourages illegal immigration.
The cruelty is that of the parents, not of US citizens. Those parents put their children in a harsh dilemma… and expect us to bail them out.
I agree with the need to return to regular order, but in dealing with what we have here:
Graham and Flake voted no because they want to pressure the GOP leadership and Trump into agreeing to a Dem-friendly DACA deal like the one Graham and Durbin presented to Trump recently.
Lee and Paul voted no because they knew the Dems had enough votes to block passage and they wanted to register their disappoval of the recent FISA reauthorization bill. I agree with their criticisms on the bill but disagree on their budget vote.
How dare we send them back to hellhole countries! That’s racist!
If @garyrobbins believes Schumer’s representations about his legislation then that is quite sad.
I guess politicians think that illegal aliens should be rewarded for their illegality as that seems to be how it works for the politicians.
Every GOP message should simply say:
Always make Progressives live with their rhetoric.
Schumer would let the whole 11 million stay and would register them to vote. I wouldn’t.
But, that is not the issue. The issue is a limited DACA bill to allow people who were brought here as children to stay. That’s 700,000 people and they have gone through extreme vetting that they have stayed employed or in school, and have not been in any trouble.
Do you really want to send back young adults who speak only English to a country that they last saw as infants or as small children, that they have no memory of? Really?
We do not do that. In North Korea, there is the three generations rule, that a criminals children and grandchildren are also placed in prison. I don’t know of any civilized country that does that, certainly not the U.S.
I note for the record that 80% of Americans agree with a DACA legislative fix for people who were brought here as children. Let’s just put it to a vote.
I find so little to credit in your previous statements that your endorsement almost makes me change my mind. Perhaps this is common ground.
How about this? Let the young adults stay, but only if their parents return home. That way, we remove two illegals and only have to keep one in exchange. A net reduction in the illegal population.
These 700,000 are young adults who were brought here as children. They are innocents.
As for their parents, Trump is deporting the violent criminals back. Good. But, the others still need to be addressed, but not today. Let’s solve the DACA issue first.
The travesty is there is a conversation about current funding for our military competing with arguments about managing the fallout of illegal immigration 15-20 years ago.
U.N.C.O.N.S.C.I.O.N.A.B.L.E
Oh heck, if Schumer had his way, he’d extend amnesty to the whole 11 million, and regsister them to vote. I am NOT for that. My viewpoint is much more limited.
Under the Lindsey Graham bill, young adults who were brought here as children would have a path forward, and chain migration would be prohibited. Let’s focus on the 700,000 DACA Dreamers who are innocent, not their guilty parents.
Agreed. But what dies DACA have to do with the necessary regular order of our government?
Am I to understand that because CR is used to fund the operations, that process permits tying unrelated issues to the CR?
Like pork barrel spending except people, not projects, become negotiating currency?
It is shameful to do this.
No. But I do want to end chain migration, end sanctuary cities/states, and enforce immigration law.
Its own vote. Separate from the CR. And after the CR or a real appropriations bills is passed.
You are conflating two things. You are thinking of the 11 million. But that is NOT what is at issue, what is at issue is a very small subset, or 6% of the 11 million, 700,000 young adults who were brought here as children and grew up here. They should not be punished for their parent’s sins.
I must have missed that. That doesn’t seem to be what Durbin and Graham presented to Trump.