Summary
- House
Republican leaders urged unity in the shutdown fight. - Members
support Speaker Mike Johnson’s move to cancel votes. - Cancellation
aims to pressure Senate Democrats into funding bill approval.
However, if senators agree that the House must go back to
Washington and enact a compromise, there is some flexibility in the schedule.
According to sources on the conversation, leaders stated that they would give
members at least 48 hours’ notice before calling them back.
However, Republicans now feel they are winning the budget
battle and see no need to call House members back to Washington to divert
attention from Senate business.
“The House will come back into session and do its work as
soon as [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer ([D-N.Y.)] allows us to reopen
the government,”
Johnson said in a press conference on Friday.
Senate Democrats voted against a House-passed,
“clean” continuing resolution to finance the government through
November 21 for the fourth time on Friday, meaning the government will continue
to be shut down into next week.
Democrats have pushed Republicans to engage in health care
policy negotiations, such as extending the expanded subsidies from the
Affordable Care Act that expire at the end of the year, but their
counterproposal has also failed time and time again.
Republicans have stated
that until the government is open, they will not engage in negotiations over
health care subsidies.
Despite the lack of scheduled votes, House Minority Leader
Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) stated on Friday that he would send Democrats to
Washington the following week.
“We can’t make commitments or promises on the COVID
subsidies, because that’s not something that we can guarantee that there are
the votes there to do,”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday.
“What I said is, I’m hoping to have a conversation with our Democrat colleagues
about how to address that issue … But that can’t happen while the government is
shut down.”
“Speaker Johnson has canceled votes next week so House
Republicans can continue their vacation, depriving Americans of affordable
healthcare, preventing the swearing-in of Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva
and stopping the release of the Epstein Files,”
Jeffries said.
“Meanwhile, the government remains closed and healthcare
costs are going up for millions of Americans,”
he continued.
“It’s time for
Republicans to get back to work so we can reopen the government, cancel the
cuts, lower the cost and save healthcare.”
How are Senate Democrats responding to Johnson’s tactic?
Democrats blame Republicans for the shutdown because they
designed and passed a funding bill without any Democratic input and refuse to
negotiate on one of the most salient issues – whether to extend health
insurance subsidies for millions of Americans under the Affordable Care Act
(ACA).
Democrats considered Johnson’s refusal to negotiate on
health care matters to be irresponsible, saying it will negatively impact
millions of Americans who rely on the subsidies.
Notably, Democrats in the Senate argued that reopening the
government is a bipartisan issue that includes protections for vulnerable
populations, unlike the GOP’s short-term funding plan.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and others expressed
that Democrats are committed to reopening the government, but they won’t agree
to ultimatums that undermine essential health care or programs.
