Not for the first time, the satirical publication The Onion nailed the fluctuating guises of the US opposition party in one succinct headline: Chuck Schumer Helps Pull the Democrats Back From the Brink of Courage.
Certainly, the timing of the breakaway vote by seven Democrat senators and one independent who acquiesced to the Republican demands, as voiced by president Donald Trump, to vote to reopen government without any guarantees on healthcare provisions, could not have been stranger.
It comes just days after the Democrats enjoyed significant electoral wins in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the sensational win for Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race. All exit polls signalled deep dissatisfaction with the economic performance of the Trump administration. In holding out for 40 days, the Democrats looked unified and principled through this shutdown. On Sunday night, all of that ended. The recriminations have been quick and savage. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, reacted with one word: “Pathetic.”
Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman from the same state, took to X to call for Schumer, the Senate minority leader, to be replaced: “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
RM Block
It’s a question on many Democrat minds.
Whatever about the future composition of US healthcare, the breakaway contingent has ushered in the last lap for Schumer as a leading Democrat.
Little wonder, then that Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, found himself in biblical mood on Monday morning. As he had promised, through weeks of evident stress, a sufficient number of Democrats would reach their senses and side with their Republican Senate colleagues to vote through the funding Bill to reopen government. Late negotiations on Sunday led to a 60-40 vote to end what Johnson terms as “the beginning of the end of the longest shutdown in US history, as shameful as that is”.
“I don’t think it’s coincidental. It’s after 40 days of wandering in the wilderness and making the American people suffer needlessly that some Senate Democrats have stepped forward to end the pain. It appears to us this morning that our long national nightmare is coming to an end and we are grateful for that.”
Johnson resisted any temptation to gloat and sounded sincere in thanking the seven Democrats and one independent, Maine’s Angus King, who decided that the agreement gave sufficient room for negotiations to preserve healthcare benefits to vulnerable Americans.
The “continuing resolution” Bill would see the government funded until January 30th, with Snap (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme) benefits guaranteed for the entirety of 2026. Federal employees will receive backpayment for the six weeks of the shutdown.
Maggie Hassan, the Nevada Democrat who was among those who broke ranks, made it clear that the agreement gives Congress time to “engage in serious bipartisan negotiations to extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expiring tax cuts for health insurance”.
Johnson also sounded earnest when he said his lawmakers would work with Democrats on a palatable healthcare bill. Each of the seven Democrats had local, or state-specific, priorities in voting for an end to a shutdown through which chaos was beginning to mount.
Last weekend saw significant air travel chaos, which was bound to intensify as Thanksgiving and Christmas peak travel seasons approached. Federal employee firings continued unchecked. Food assistance programmes were under threat.
Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator whose state is home to many of the federal employees under furlough or wrongly dismissed, justified his decision by stating that Sunday night’s deal “guarantees a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits”. And crucially for him, the deal guarantees the reinstatement of federal workers laid off during the shutdown.
But the bulk of Kaine’s party colleagues are adamant that the vote will be nothing more than political theatre because it won’t even pass in the Senate to reach the House – where it would be defeated anyway.
[ Make no mistake, American democracy remains in a perilous stateOpens in new window ]
“To my mind this was a very, very bad vote,” senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday night.
“What it does first of all is it raises healthcare premiums for over 20 million Americans by doubling or in some cases tripling or quadrupling. People can’t afford that when we are already paying the highest prices in the world for healthcare.
“Number two, it paves the way for 15 million people to be thrown off Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. Studies show that that will mean that some 50,000 people will die every year unnecessarily. And all of that was done to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the [wealthiest] one per cent.”
Dick Durbin, the veteran Illinois Democratic senator who will not seek re-election next year, argued that the prolonged shutdown was causing too much hurt in too many households and called on Republican Senate leader John Thune to “keep his promise to schedule a vote on the ACA tax credits in December”.
Irrespective of the empathetic reasons behind the eight crucial votes, the net result is the visual of the Democratic Party bending the knee before Trump’s unblinking refusal to yield one inch. It was a cave-in, and one that may lead to a substantial change of the old-guard leadership.
But the reopening of government will once again lead to debate on the merits, and otherwise, of the ACA, or “Obamacare”. It’s a piece of legislation for which Trump holds special loathing, not least because of its informal title. And it is legislation from which voters in Republican states disproportionately benefit. Since the ACA benefits were extended in 2021, enrolment tripled in the deep Red states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia – it also covers many residents in Trump’s bailiwick of south Florida. If it is ultimately scrapped, the Democrats can point to the shutdown as evidence that they fought for it, for 40 days and 40 nights.
Meanwhile, Johnson has sent out an SOS to all members of congress to get back to Washington on Wednesday so the Bill can be voted through and placed on the Resolute Desk for Trump to sign.
They can expect travel delays.
