Should Democratic Senators play nice with Republicans and support the continuing resolution?

Politics & Elections
1

Continuing the discussion from Fighting for the American Democratic Experiment and Against Trump: Practical Steps and Best Practices:

This is a real issue up for debate within the Senate Democratic caucus. The House passed a continuing resolution with Trumpist priorities funding the government through September with no Democratic input. House Democrats had one demand: Trump’s lawbreaking must stop. That was too much.

There are fears that if there’s a governmental shutdown the Dems will be blamed. One answer to that is that Elon/Trump are already shutting the government down: the whole point of the executive orders is to whittle the government down into shutdown mode.

Josh Marshall addresses some of the reasons not to cooperate with Republicans here:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/here-are-the-arguments-for-why-senate-ds-should-vote-yes-and-why-theyre-wrong

So: should the Democrats in the Senate vote to stop debate on the continuing resolution? Doing that requires 60 votes. I suppose there are reasons for cooperation and capitulation. Most of humanity in the past was governed in non-democratic ways. Maybe we should give up on democracy. It’s had a good run, but maybe it’s time to move on. Life would go on even with less freedom and prosperity.

2

They will also be praised.

There’s no scenario in which allowing the GOP plans to move forward unopposed makes anything better, so better to burn it all down. Make the GOP change the rules on the filibuster to pass this, so they own it all.

Someone needs to take some kind of stand, and the Senate appears to be the last place that can happen.

3

I personally believe the Democrats should not compromise on this issue. As you said, they had one basic demand of the Republicans: their king must act like a president instead. And the Republicans dug in their heels and said that’s too much to ask. That shows you not only their priorities, but their complete lack of investment in our form of government functioning as it has for over two centuries. Regardless of who’s going to get blamed, this is the right battle to fight right now.

4

Short answer: no.
Long answer: HELL NO. My congresswoman voted for the CR, and though she’s managed to find a number of ways to disappoint me since she first took office four years ago, this is the final straw that’s made me decide she needs to be primaried. I’m counting on Cantwell and Murray to hold the line.

5

When has “playing nice” with the Republicans ever done anything but hand them even more power in return for nothing? And the people who will “blame the Democrats” will do so regardless of what the Democrats do.

Standing up to the Republicans however at least has the chance of convincing some of their own base that the Democrats aren’t all spineless and worthless. Nobody respects the Democrats, neither their supporters nor opponents thanks to their decades of compliant spinelessness; they need to start digging their way out of that hole if they ever want to regain any power (assuming that is even possible at this point, which I doubt).

Submitting to the Republicans yet again absolutely won’t do that.

6

Cite?

The news on The Hill is just showing objections to legal, Congressionally passed initiatives to reduce spending:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5189784-top-house-democrats-press-senate-colleagues-to-sink-gop-spending-bill/

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5189796-golden-votes-republican-stopgap/

7

It is now irrelevant what voters think of Democrats. All of it is Trump and GOP now. Nobody will remember this by the 2026 election. They will only remember the disaster Trump and Musk caused between now and 2026.

8

Cite:
Congress Turns To Stopgap As GOP Tries To Spin Dems’ Separation Of Powers Request As ‘Unreasonable’

Yes, Dems attacked unpopular things late in the process. But when House negotiations were actually occurring here is what they said:

“Let’s be clear, the Democrat demand is really simple,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told TPM, with a mocking emphasis on the word “demand” on Thursday. “It’s that the President commits to following the law. That’s it. It’s not a big deal.”

“The guardrails that we are asking for are really minimal. It’s just: spend the money as we all appropriated,” Coons, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, added during an elevator ride up to the Senate floor.

GOP to the American Experiment: Sucks to be you:

“Our differences with our Democratic colleagues on some of the restrictions they’re demanding on what we consider legitimate presidential authority — we’re not moving on that,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) said on Wednesday as he exited a meeting with Johnson, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Politico reported.

Oh, and it’s unreasonable to follow the Constitution which says that Congress makes laws and the Executive enforces them:

“The Democrats have had completely unreasonable conditions assigned to this,” Johnson claimed, describing Democrats’ request for assurances around Congress’ authority to stand up agencies and fund the federal government as “just unreasonable” and “unconstitutional.”

I’m sure the Dems would have asked for more if the House GOP seriously negotiated them. But obeying the Constitution was the Democratic bottom line.

It’s entirely unclear how the Senate Dems will respond to this. They have not publicly laid the groundwork for pushing back on the partial governmental shutdowns currently being carried out illegally by the Trump regime. Josh Marshall today:

I feel pretty certain that today is the last day to have any impact on what Democratic senators will do on the upcoming vote on the House-produced “continuing resolution.” There was apparently a pretty intense argument yesterday in a caucus meeting about what to do.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-last-day-3

It’s time to call or email your Senator.

9

Interesting that when Republicans want to stand on principle and let the government shut down they are worse than Hitler. When the Democrats want to do it, it’s a fight for democracy.

Oh I’m absolutely sure that all y’all will rationalize it so that it’s different this time, with none of the consequences you predict will happen when the Pubs threaten to do it.

10

I will be exceedingly disappointed if the Dems cooperate sufficiently to allow this to pass. That would in no way be cooperation - instead, it would be utter capitulation to an opponent who has refused to cooperate AT ALL. What would the Dems get for such cooperation? NOTHING!

It is entirely inaccurate to say the only solution is for the Dems to capitulate to allow the Repubs to continue as they wish. Instead, there are COUNTLESS solutions which involved some degree if cooperation by the Repubs.

11

Yep.

If Democrats filibuster, the Republicans will blame them for the government shutdown. If Democrats don’t filibuster, the Republicans will blame them for the upcoming recession.

Democrats need to do the right thing and that means resisting now.

Edited to add: I’m going to call my senators (Schiff and Padilla) and tell them exactly that.

12

I assume you are fine with Trump usurping extra-constitutional authority and that standing up to that is no different than fighting for more tax cuts?

13

Here are some arguments for turning tail and rolling over

  • You are simplifying MfM. How exactly are the Dems suppose to enforce an order for Trump to obey the law?

A: Yeah, I’m simplifying. Because you can convey a paragraph at most to your elected representative. But I strongly suspect there are viable methods that will partially succeed. And I’ll take a partial success. Musk could be fired. DOGE could be disbanded or forced to follow, you know, lawful procedures that cabinets have, among them Senate approval of the boss. The details are negotiable. The main line is not.

  • Dem politicians need to think 2 or 3 steps ahead. How would this shutdown play out?

A: Yeah, they would need messaging. They would also need to do something like support an actually clean resolution, along with language to help the Trump regime obey the law. So it’s complicated. And it won’t succeed 100%. But the goals are straightforward.

For example, Trump is shutting down the NIH and has already shut down USAID. We already have a government shutdown. Dem’s efforts at this stage are about pace and timing. The shutdown itself is already occurring.

Call your Senator today.

14

That is a bad assumption.
I’m just curious how collapsing the American economy, more than tariffs will do, solves the Trump factor. Seems akin to burning down your House to get rid of a mouse infestation.

15

It’s not a mouse infestation. The house is already on fire.

When the house is on fire, you dump water on it. The water will also do damage. You dump water on the fire anyway, because the results otherwise will be worse.

– I have a lot of trouble making phone calls. I have emailed both senators. Hold firm, New York!

16

The House Republicans know that due to Senate rules the Democrats have a valid means for influencing the resolution. Instead of sending the resolution to the Senate then waiting to resolve differences, the way things are supposed to work, they just decided to go home and hide from their responsibilities.

17

To some extent, it’s a good message.

In general, though, I feel like they’re going to face little support when it’s pointed out that “Obey the Law” means, “Keep spending money on Progressive agencies.” The popular sentiment is that trimming government is good and the average person doesn’t care much about the nuances of Presidential obligations enough to back the Democrats if that’s all we’re talking about.

Now if we’re talking about things like the First Amendment issues around Mahmoud Kahlil, the birthright citizenship order that violates the 14th Amendment, or the surprise disappearance of the anti-money laundering task force, orders to not obey reporting laws that would aid in tracking down money launderers, and the lack of Trump putting his assets into a blind trust to ensure that he doesn’t use his position corruptly, those are more likely to see success - as messages.

In terms of actual negotiations, though, Congress can write anything on paper. Johnson and Thune can’t make Trump obey the law, somehow, just by writing more laws. So this really is just about telling a story, not getting something to change.

18

There has to be a continuing resolution. Best thing is to demand a pure bill.

And “demanding trump obeys the law” is pointless.

19

I’d agree that it’s legally questionable whether they even could write a law that would pass Constitutional muster. The Supreme Court’s positions would probably be that they’re the ones to decide what the Executive Branch has to do. And to the extent that Congress wants to play a part in that, they can impeach and remove him.

20

Or, “Obey the law” means have Congress grow some balls, and just straight up cut those “Progressive agencies” they way it’s supposed to be done. As it stands, the GOP Congress is doing what it always does: try to stealth kill such spending in a way that they can blame everyone but themselves, because they know that if they actually do this, their own constituents will eat them alive.

This way, they can all just blame it on Musk, and act like they, personally, are just appalled at what happened.