‘A Moratorium on Mischief’
What the shutdown should have been about.
POLITICO (“How Senate Republicans won the last vote to end the shutdown“):
Tim Kaine privately laid out weeks ago what he needed in return for his vote to end the government shutdown: a “moratorium on mischief.”
That’s what the Virginia Democrat told Senate Majority Leader John Thune that any deal had to include — undoing the firings President Donald Trump and budget director Russ Vought had carried out since the start of the shutdown, as well as protections against future firings of federal workers, who make up a significant portion of Kaine’s constituency.
It was a demand that Kaine wasn’t sure the White House and Trump would agree to fully meet until the final hours before the nail-biter vote Sunday that cemented a bipartisan breakthrough.
“There was a lot of resistance but they needed my vote,” Kaine said about the GOP reaction to his demands, adding that negotiators “reached a meeting of the minds” at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday.
About five hours later, the Senate voted to move forward with legislation ensuring any federal workers laid off during the shutdown are rehired and blocking future reductions in force, or RIFs, through at least the end of a new Jan. 30 stopgap spending bill.
Most of the attention to the six weeks of shutdown negotiation centered on Democrats’ demands surrounding health care, particularly the extension of key expiring health insurance subsidies. But the RIF language was the final piece that helped clinch the deal, according to interviews with six people involved in the bipartisan negotiations.
With only eight members of the Democratic caucus voting to advance the bill — the bare minimum for it to move forward — satisfying Kaine was critical to ending the conflict largely on the GOP’s terms while also giving Democrats, who have long worried about Trump taking a sledgehammer to the federal government, something to hold up as a consolation prize.
Kaine was, by his own admission, a latecomer to the bipartisan talks, only joining late last week. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) began talking with Republicans the first night of the shutdown, by Shaheen’s account. The core group of negotiators included Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.), among others.
Shaheen, asked about the RIF language, said that it was “something the White House put on the table weeks ago as something they were willing to take a look at.” Britt also said in an interview the idea was in the mix as she, Collins, Shaheen and others discussed possible paths to reopen the government.
Granting that a promise to follow the law for a few weeks is not a massive win in any normal sense, this has always struck me as the issue over which Democrats—and Congressional Republicans—should have been fighting for. Most admit that, while they of course wanted to extend the temporary Obamacare subsidy, that was always a pose. They were really animated by the Trump administration’s unprecedented power grabs: shuttering agencies without Congressional authorization, mass firings of probationary employees, pocket recisions of Congressionally-funded programs, and the like.
Fighting over the rule of law and Congress’ constitutional prerogatives would undoubtedly have been less sexy than healthcare subsidies for millions. But it was a fight they could have won, likely attracting some Republican support from the get-go, probably without inflicting the pain of a government shutdown.
I’m not so sure about that. Republicans have been pretty universally supportive of shrinking the size of government–it’s an issue that plays very, very well with their voters. Even when they realized that they NEEDED a lot of these employees back, the process was that Trump would fire broad swaths of these employees, revel in the headlines, and then quietly start to hire them back.
Republicans are fundamentally addicted to headlines proclaiming that they are firing government workers. T’was always thus, and always thus will be.
Just as the ACA subsidies are a core issue for me, this preservation of government jobs is a core issue for you, and probably contributing to your belief that this would have been a better path.
ETA: I also think this downplays our reality TV president’s tendency towards preferring DRAMA. He *likes* these shutdowns. It gives him the opportunity to posture and preen, berating Democrats. He’s go for that even if there was nothing to argue about–he’d invent something.
“But it was a fight they could have won, likely attracting some Republican support from the get-go, probably without inflicting the pain of a government shutdown.”
What on earth makes you think the bolded part is correct? No Republicans has publicly objected to the President treating the law as toilet paper so far, and none are going to so long as they fear Trump’s ability to stir up their primary voters.
While it would have been helpful for Kaine and others to shout this ‘demand’ from the proverbial rooftops, I don’t think it would have motivated any Republicans to break ranks. My MAGA congressman has responded to my emails that complained of Trump’s unconstitutional tariffs and illegal military deployments with prefabricated talking points about national security and fighting crime. This same congressman – who worked in the Trump 1 White House – had no problem with Elon Musk’s willy nilly decimation of the federal workforce, saying Musk had been “duly appointed” by Trump, who – don’t ya know – had a mandate.
I’m with Jen on this one.
AND, I think this business must have landed on you and your family pretty hard. You have my sympathies.
A little naïve maybe. Republicans renominated and reelected Trump, an Epstein-bestie pedo, after he attempted a coup and incited a terror attack on Congress to assassinate his VP. Republican electeds and candidates backed Trump after he pardoned those terrorists, illegally gut the federal government, deployed the military against US citizens, let masked ICE goons tear-gas kids, and kidnapped migrants to torture prisons without due process.
There’s no evidence conservatives would stop enabling Trump’s authoritarianism because of shutdown that furthered their goals of shrinking government, cutting healthcare, and denying welfare to the vulnerable.
Given that shutdowns always “fail” sooner or later (because the minority party simply does have the power or control their rabid fringe imagines) the success this shutdown did have was in centering political conversation on the MAGA hit to household pocketbooks — including on healthcare affordability. Democrats got more traction out of that than they would’ve from wishin’ and hopin’ there’s a critical mass of congressional Republicans who’ll stand up to Trump’s neofascism. There’s not because modern Republicans dislike liberal democracy and enjoy forcing rightwing prerogatives over the people’s will.
It’s not a coincidence the only time Republicans united against Trump during the shutdown was when he accidentally proposed something fundamentally democratic: ending the Senate’s procedural filibuster.
@Jen: @Jay L. Gischer: DOGE and related activities have hit us hard, for sure, although DOD has been relatively safe, since it’s still a priority.
@Jen: @Moosebreath: @DK: While I agree that there is significant support within the party for closing Education and USAID, for example, most Republican Members understand that there are not only essential services provided by the government that benefits their constituents but a whole lot of federal jobs employ their constituents and spend money in their states and districts. As such, there has been significant complaint from GOP Members; the leadership, of course, has been spineless.
Bullshit.
@James Joyner:
I do not believe this at all. I have listened to Republicans tell us that government is the problem of all problems and the ONLY solution is less government. Not better government, not more useful government, NO GOVERNMENT*. We’ve gotten to the point with this that all of them believe that. They’ve absolutely convinced themselves of their own bullshit.
*except unlimited cops and soldiers.
@Charley in Cleveland:
This matches my experience with Senators Cornyn and Cruz. I write a letter on some specific issue and get back a canned response that is not connected to the issue I wrote. I keep them all just in case someone wants to put up a letter and response site.
@becca:
Ditto.
It is ridiculous to suppose that any Republican, House, Senate or Cabinet will ever do anything not approved by Trump. Which means that no deal offered by Republicans is of any value whatsoever. They have no honor, their word means nothing, and even this deal means very little because Trump can snap his tiny fingers and impose his will on the invertebrates in his party.
Normal no longer exists. Honesty and honor no longer exist. The country may not yet be a dictatorship but the GOP sure as hell is, and I find it baffling that there are still people who just don’t seem to get it.
A promise from the lawless to follow the law in the future is sure to be honored. You see the cops let crooks go on their word they’ll behave better all the time on Law & Order.
That is what I wrote a couple of weeks ago. While fighting for containing the cost to constituents of healthcare, the Democrats should be collecting a portfolio of policy changes geared to reclaiming their legislative prerogatives and power. As well as changes to laws that they failed to update when they were in charge i.e Insurrection Act.
Ah, yes. The fine print.
Shutdown Deal Would Let Senators Sue for Jack Smith Searches
@James Joyner:
“most Republican Members understand that there are not only essential services provided by the government that benefits their constituents but a whole lot of federal jobs employ their constituents and spend money in their states and districts.”
Whether Republican lawmakers believe that some federal employees perform essential services is entirely unrelated to whether they would publicly oppose the Trump Administration ignoring the law and the Constitution.
@Scott: Not sure how they could apply this right retroactively.
@Scott: Each time criminal investigators attempted to access a senator’s data without informing them, the court would be able to award at least $500,000, provided that the lawmaker whose device was searched wasn’t the target of the investigation, according to language tucked into the very end of the 64-page legislative branch bill.
ETA – the opening graf was supposed to be in the quote block and the rest was not. I am frequently baffled by the tools that are supposed to make it easy for me to be stylish. And so it goes…
Shutdown Deal Would Let Senators Sue for Jack Smith Searches
So a bunch of traitorous pieces of shit senators who violated their oath to the Constitution are going to get enriched to the tune of at least a half a million dollars for their role in January 6th! Please explain how anyone can defend the eight Democrats and Independents who voted for this.
I think my eighth grade self would put it this way: Fuck self-righteous Tim Kaine with a rusty coat hanger.
@Scott: I know it is fruitless but I still write letters to my Congresscritters.
Guess we’ll have to be content with the moratorium on brains El Taco imposed on the executive branch.
LOL. Yeah, I’m SURE Trump’s agreement that there won’t be any more mischief will be totally binding. Also, he has some ocean beachfront property in Colorado to sell you, cheap.
It’s always good to see Democrats caving solely for the purpose of allowing Republicans to keep filibustering Democratic bills in a future Senate that the Democrats control.
More accurately, Democrats caved so they never find themselves in a position of having to pass genuinely ambitious progressive legislation, because the filibuster ensures they don’t even need to bother trying.
No, this would not have worked, because no one has been laying the groundwork of educating the American people (or their Senators…) about the need for that fight.
I regret to inform you that there are roughly 100 people in America that understand that fight, and that 20 of them are commenters here, 20 are in the Senate, and the other 60 are scattered across this great land with their noses in books.
You are a statistical outlier who surrounds himself with statistical outliers.
I’m still not sure what was bipartisan about this deal to end the shutdown.
Frankly, I’m glad that this ‘bipartisan breakthrough’ did NOT happen before the Tuesday election(s).
@Gustopher:
While I take your larger point, I would note that millions across the country showed up for No Kings rallies in June and October, the latter the largest single-day protest in American history. The rule of law is a pretty powerful principle.
@Jen: @Moosebreath: @DK: Oh, and it appears that Katie Britt (Richard Shelby’s successor) was the key to getting the RIFs reversed:
I don’t think she’s alone. A lot of Republican Members have significant military and/or civil service personnel in their states and districts.
@James Joyner:
Amazing. They agreed to abide by the legal requirements.
And from the OP:
There are literally zero facts in evidence that this was possible, let alone plausible.
At some point naiveté becomes willful ignorance.