Moderate Democrats are at the center of a game of tug-of-war between Republicans and Democratic leadership, as the GOP attempts to peel off the five remaining votes needed to back the party’s “clean” stopgap spending bill and reopen the government.
According to multiple GOP sources, individual Republican lawmakers are engaging with Senate Democrats who they view as flippable in a bid to win them over. Although some members of leadership are involved, this is largely being done at the rank-and-file level, with members who have working relationships with the Democrats in question taking on the heavy lifting.
On Wednesday, what began as spur-of-the-minute talks on the Senate floor ballooned into a conversation involving up to a dozen rank-and-file lawmakers with an eye toward a possible resolution on two fronts: an alternative stopgap spending deadline and the enhanced Affordable Care Act credits, which are set to expire at year’s end.
“I think there are a lot of Democrat people who are looking for a way out. They want an off-ramp here,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told The Hill. “There’s a good amount of outreach going on and conversations being held. We’ll see where it goes.”
Sens. Gary Peters (Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) are among the preeminent Democrats that Republicans hope to flip. All of them backed the March stopgap spending bill that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is still trying to pick up the pieces from.
One Senate Republican likened the discussions on Wednesday to an informal push rather than an effort featuring formal talks.
“It’s really more of a pick-up game now. There’s no one person on point,” the lawmaker said. “It hasn’t gelled in any sort of gang framework.”
That effort is one half of the push-pull dynamic taking place. At the same time, Schumer is doing all he can to keep his caucus united in the coming days.
Two Senate Democrats told The Hill that Schumer is heavily lobbying his members to hold the line.
“The most effective thing that Chuck has done in this is start the discussions really early … in the caucus, because that was the source of some angst,” one Democrat said, noting that the talks on how to handle the funding bill began in June. “People feeling included in the discussion, in the decision making …. that makes it a lot easier to ask folks, ‘Ok, [there are] no great options. This is the best option. Let’s stick together.’”
Thune is doing his part to keep the pressure, having followed through with a promise made hours before the shutdown to hold daily votes on the GOP’s House-passed seven-week stopgap spending measure.
Republicans have insisted that is the only avenue to reopen the government, especially with the House out of town until next week.
Thune on Wednesday forced a third vote on the House-passed seven-week stopgap spending bill, which failed. Republicans were buoyed by the defection of three members of the Democratic caucus: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Angus King (I-Maine) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
But both the overall tally and defections were unchanged from Tuesday.
That number will stay unchanged for at least another day as the chamber will be out of session Thursday in observance of Yom Kippur. But Republicans are expected to fire up votes up on the funding bill once again on Friday and Saturday in an attempt to wear down Democrats.
“They’re feeling a lot from the top. I think they’re trying to keep it together, but it’s going to start fracturing before long,” Thune added.
The administration on Wednesday also started to impose its will on Democrats and their states, with an eye toward making the shutdown as painful as possible.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Wednesday announced that $18 billion for infrastructure projects in New York City would be frozen.
New York is home to Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), with both criticizing the move that was aimed at the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Avenue Subway.
“Donald Trump is once again treating working people as collateral damage in his endless campaign of chaos and revenge,” the Democratic leadership pair wrote in a statement. “The Gateway Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway aren’t political trophies — they are lifelines. … Instead of playing politics with the livelihoods of millions, President Trump should be working on bipartisan solutions to strengthen infrastructure, lower costs, and deliver for the American people.”
Vought also told House Republicans that federal layoffs will likely be rolled out on Thursday or Friday, a move Democrats have decried.
It remains to be seen whether the informal talks can snowball into something larger, though there remain larger pieces of the puzzle that still have to be connected.
Among them is the GOP’s insistence that any talks about the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies come once the government is funded. Democrats have long maintained that they want action on those tax credits as part of any bill, but the loss of any further votes in support of the CR could affect those nascent negotiations.
“The pressure is only going to build,” a second Senate Republican told The Hill. “[Shutdowns] start with a bang and end with a whimper — and the whimper is nothing was really accomplished and we open back up again.”
