In this post, I am collecting reports about where Democratic senators are telling constituents they stand on the Trump/Elon continuing resolution bill. If you haven’t, please read the piece immediately below this one (or click here) about the choice Dems now face.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss Senate Democrats’ tactics on House Republicans’ continuing resolution, as well as the tanking stock market and potentially looming recession.
Federal workers obviously don’t like government shutdowns. Most of them are furloughed. Others are forced to continue working without pay. But in a letter addressed to members of the Senate, which I obtained, Everett B. Kelley, head of what I believe is the country’s biggest federal government employee union — the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) — asks senators to vote “no” on the House-produced continuing resolution, and says that a shutdown is actually preferable to passing the bill.
“AFGE is particularly struck that even as the Senate prepares to debate and vote on [the continuing resolution], the Trump administration has announced its intention to effectively destroy the Department of Education regardless of whether Congress approves or disapproves of that decision,” it reads. It also says they categorically reject the idea that voting against the CR means voting for a shutdown. They then go on to discuss that the administration just unilaterally canceled the collective bargaining agreement with TSA workers and declared the agency “union-free.”
In the half-hour or so that I thought Dems were actually going to go to the mat over the continuing resolution, it occurred to me that, if it were up to me, my opening offer would be this: We’ll actually vote for a clean continuing resolution. We’ll even let you have all your DOGE cuts … with one condition. Write up exactly what the end state for each department and agency is. And then we’ll hold a vote for each department. Each department or agency individually. But it’s a bill. And it’s binding. We’ll even give up the right to filibuster. Straight majority votes in both houses. You’re the majority. How can you refuse that? Just put each one to a vote.
As you could see from my comments here and some occasional comments on Bluesky, I felt pretty confident for most of the day that Senate Dems were in the process of caving. Then I had to go offline for a couple hours in the late afternoon. I was a bit stunned and more than pleasantly surprised when I saw clips of Chuck Schumer’s floor speech saying that Senate Dems had the votes to block cloture. Wow, I thought: things were turning out better than I realized. I mean, if you have the votes to block cloture, you block cloture, right? Pretty quickly I heard from multiple sources what was actually happening. This was a deal between Schumer and Thune to allow a brief performative episode to throw Democratic voters off the scent while the Democratic caucus allowed the bill to pass. The deal is this: Democrats agree to give up the 60-vote threshold in exchange for being allowed to offer amendments to the House bill. The “amendment” or “amendments” will likely be some version of Sen. Murray’s 30-day CR. It doesn’t even matter what they are. But this is all for show. Once you give up the 60-vote threshold the whole thing is over.
Senator Kaine put it with great clarity: “Democrats had nothing to do with this bill. And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. So that’s what we are insisting on to vote for cloture.” Again you’re giving up “cloture,” the 60-vote threshold, in exchange for the ability to offer amendments that will certainly fail.
INSIDE: Ed Martin … Tanya Chutkan … Mahmoud Khalil
‘It Sends Little Chills Down My Spine’: In a closely watched emergency hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell quickly recognized the threat to the rule of law posed by President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie – and moved immediately to issue an order blocking key portions of it.
What We Don’t Know About Ed Martin’s Shenanigans: Acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has been up to far more mischief than has been publicly revealed so far, the WaPo suggests.
Chutkan Slams Gov’t Conduct In Crazy EPA Case: The Trump administration’s over-the-top effort to claw back Biden-era EPA grants was tested in open court for the first time, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was having none of it.
Khalil Still Detained In Louisiana U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman did not immediately order the return of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil from detention in Louisiana but did allow his lawyers to have access to him by telephone.
Kate and Josh discuss Senate Democrats’ tactics on House Republicans’ continuing resolution, as well as the tanking stock market and potentially looming recession.
