Dem
47
GOP
53
Today is the day the Senate will vote on the so-called "continuing resolution" (CR), deciding either to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, or else to shut it down. We put that phrase in quotations because it's being used in a dishonest manner (and deliberately so). The CR most certainly does not "continue" the current budget for the next 6 months; it makes some fairly significant changes in funding while also ceding even more power to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
With the CR having already passed the House, and the Republicans having 53 votes in the Senate (well, 52, since Rand Paul, R-KY, is a "no"), the ball is in the Senate Democrats' court. A filibuster is possible here, if 42 Democrats decide that is what they would like to do. For most of the day on Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was signaling that a filibuster was indeed the plan. Then, after a heated all-caucus meeting on Thursday, with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) leading the anti-filibuster forces, Schumer indicated that a filibuster is probably not happening. Certainly, the Minority Leader is not whipping votes for a filibuster, nor will he himself vote with the pro-filibuster forces. This, along with various other clues available, tell us that Schumer, Gillibrand, John Fetterman (D-PA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) are all votes for cloture. Those five, plus the 52 non-Paul Republicans, would mean that only three more Democratic or independent votes for cloture would be needed in order for a potential filibuster to be overcome.
Schumer and the other Democrats have made clear that the primary reason for their decision, as unpleasant as they find it, is that they believe that if the government is shut down, it will enable the Co-Presidents to significantly increase the amount of harm they will do. From the floor of the Senate yesterday, the Minority Leader said that the CR is bad, but a shutdown would be "much, much worse." There are counter-arguments here, like "The Democrats should be using their only real opportunity to push back against Musk, regardless of the consequences" or "Keeping the government open isn't exactly stopping Musk and Trump from wreaking any and all havoc they wish to wreak" or "Non-Trumpers really need a demonstration right now that someone is standing up for them." One could very reasonably say that Schumer & Co. should be pursuing Bad Option B, instead of (apparently) going with Bad Option A.
It is not for us to say which position is the right one. What we can say, however, is that Senate Democrats knew they had only bad choices. The back-and-forth they went through, and the public hand-wringing they did, illustrates that. So, the folks who are writing "Senate Democrats just don't get it" or "Senate Democrats have no spines"—and there are many of them—are, in our view, engaging in lazy, knee-jerk analysis. No amount of insight or courage was magically going to turn Bad Option A or Bad Option B into Good Option A.
Still, one of the prices of choosing a bad option, even if bad options are all you've got, is that people are going to be angry. The lefties in the Democratic Party are not happy, to say the least. Many House Democrats are also displeased, as they held together (and many of them, in purple districts, stuck their necks out in order to stick with the team).
Also upset are the residents of Washington, DC. In a delightful quirk of the American system, DC raises most of its own funding (about 80%), but its budget has to be approved by Congress. Normally in budget bills, even in CRs, there is a passage that says, "Whatever budget the DC council approved is acceptable." This time, that's not there, presumably because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his colleagues don't much care if they hurt a group of people who are overwhelmingly Black and Democratic. So, it appears that the District will have to revert to its previous budget, which was the last one to be approved by Congress. If so, that means something like $1.1 billion in spending cuts. Note that this will not actually save any money for the federal government, since the money was collected by the D.C. government from D.C. residents. Instead, the District would have to treat the money as surplus, and add it to its reserves.
Given that the crackdown on D.C. serves no purpose, it's very difficult to avoid the conclusion that being cruel and punitive is the point—in particular, visiting some payback for "Black Lives Matter Plaza." For now, this will probably make Trump and many other Republicans feel very good. However, they are also giving both the Democrats and the residents of the District an(other) excellent argument for why D.C. should be given statehood. That isn't going to matter right now, or anytime in the immediate future, but maybe on some future, filibuster-free day...
We will learn sometime today if the CR passes, as is likely. The Democrats' next chance to flex their muscles will come in a few months, when the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Given that they backed down on shutting down the government, it pretty clearly sends the message they won't be willing to default on the debt. Indeed, "the Democrats need to lay the groundwork for the next fight" is another excellent argument for a filibuster right now. Assuming Senate Democrats do fold today, their very next move should be to book appearances on the weekend news programs, and any other outlet possible, to communicate the message: "We will not, under any circumstances, vote to raise the debt ceiling without also imposing specific limits on the powers of Elon Musk and DOGE." The Democrats' current position was weakened by the fact that they did not get out ahead of the messaging, and waited until it was too late. But if they spend the next 2-3 months committing to a very firm, no-compromises position on the debt ceiling and Musk, they will be in a much stronger position when their next opportunity arrives. (Z)