Senate Democrats are resisting calls from the nation’s largest union representing federal workers — a longtime political ally — to accept Republicans’ “clean” stopgap to reopen the government.
It is the latest display of how outside pressure and deadlines have failed to move the parties away from their entrenched positions surrounding Democrats’ demands to negotiate on health care as the shutdown reaches its fourth week.
“I get where they’re coming from. We want the shutdown to end too. But fundamentally, if Trump and Republicans continue to refuse to negotiate with us to figure out how to lower health care costs, we’re in the same place that we’ve always been,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 workers in the federal government and Washington, D.C., on Monday effectively sided with Republicans who have been calling on Democrats to accept a GOP-crafted, House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through Nov. 21.
“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
Republicans hailed the statement, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) quoting Kelley at a Tuesday press conference and calling for Democrats to support a Republican stopgap measure to reopen the government. And Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Monday night the statement would have “a lot of impact” because “they’ve been our friends, and we’ve worked with them over the years.”
But on Tuesday, a vote to advance that Republican stopgap failed to advance for the 13th time, with no change in the caucus’s defectors from the other 12 votes. Only two Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) — along with Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, broke ranks and supported the measure.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday he told Kelley that Congress needs to both ensure that federal workers get pay and negotiate on health care.
“We can provide all the help — provide pay and furlough and back pay for federal workers — and fix the health care crisis,” Schumer said in a press conference.
The political arms of the AFGE and other federal unions have historically supported and endorsed Democratic candidates, and they are considered an important part of Democrats’ political coalition.
But other federal employee unions have not been as vocal as the AFGE about encouraging lawmakers to pass a clean continuing resolution. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal employees in 38 federal agencies and offices, previously said its members would “continue urging their members of Congress to resolve the funding stalemate and reach a bipartisan agreement that provides agencies with the funding they need.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said Democrats “of course” care about the AFGE.
“But the fact is, Republicans fired arbitrarily, thousands, tens of thousands of employees at the beginning of the year, cut them off from health insurance, didn’t give any type of severance, and now they’re turning around saying, ‘Oh my god, we’re here to fight for the government employees.’ Like, bulls‑‑‑,” Gallego said.
“Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites. It’s not going to work. Make sure that we get health care premiums at the right level for our 24 million Americans. That’s what we’re focused on,” Gallego said.
Democrats demanding negotiations on health care and withholding support for the “clean” CR are mainly urging their Republican counterparts to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are expiring at the end of the year. Experts say Americans could see the cost of their health insurance premium plans increase if those subsidies are not extended.
Also at play in the shutdown fight is a deep distrust of the Trump administration in budget negotiations and administration of congressionally appropriated funds for their intended purpose, since the administration has fired thousands of federal workers and sought to rescind already-appropriated funds for programs it does not like.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), whose state has one of the largest numbers of federal employees, said he’s worked very closely with the AFGE.
“They do not want us to pass a CR and then have President Trump just fire more people next week. If we did that, they would come to me and say, ‘Why the hell did you do that?’” Kaine said. “And so I don’t think we can vote for something and then have President Trump just tear it up next week and start firing federal workers.”
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), one of the members Republicans are most hoping to flip to support their CR, said he was not surprised by the AFGE statement.
“I had conversations with them early,” Peters said. “It wasn’t unusual to hear what they said.”
Peters voted against advancing a bill introduced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), dubbed the Shutdown Fairness Act, to pay essential federal workers during the shutdown. Johnson recently offered Democrats a proposal to pay both essential and furloughed federal employees during the shutdown — which some Democrats have signaled they may be open to.
Earlier Tuesday, Democratic leaders in the House had also indicated they were not changing their position on the shutdown, despite the union’s appeal.
“We certainly understand where those union members are coming from and the difficult dilemma they have,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip.
“But this is the situation we’re in with a Republican Party that refuses to even come to the table,” Clark said. “So we hear the union — we stand with them. And we implore our colleagues to come back to work.”
