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Democrats face moment of truth as shutdown coalition frays

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Democrats grappled Monday with the first major fraying of their coalition amid the government shutdown, with a federal employee union calling for them to stand down four weeks into the standoff.

There was no immediate surrender from party leaders, but the union’s plea forced many Democratic lawmakers into a defensive crouch. Their No. 2 Senate leader said it would be a subject of internal conversations this week with bipartisan talks all but ground to a halt.

“It has a lot of impact. They’ve been our friends,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters Monday, adding that Democrats “take them seriously.”

The push by the American Federation of Government Employees for Congress to immediately pass a “clean” stopgap funding bill, which is what has been offered by Republicans, is among a laundry list of pressure points that are bearing down on lawmakers.

By the end of the week, members of the military will miss their next paycheck, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will run out and Americans who get their health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges will confront premium spikes as open enrollment starts without a deal on how to extend soon-to-expire subsidies. The ramifications of the shutdown on air travel also escalated over the weekend.

Sen. Mark Warner of federal-worker-heavy Virginia has been firmly in favor of confronting President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans over the expiring ACA subsidies and health care. But the Democrat struck a more cautious note Monday.

“Look, I think we can still deal with health care and SNAP, but I know … the shutdown is a real challenge,” he said. “Federal employees feel like they’ve been abused and also going for weeks now without pay.”

He sidestepped a question on whether the AFGE’s statement would change his position: “Let’s see.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met Monday evening with his leadership circle, including Durbin. The entire Senate Democratic caucus will meet for a closed-door lunch Tuesday.

Schumer didn’t directly address the union’s new position during a floor speech Monday. Spokespeople for Schumer also did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s statement, in which national president Everett Kelley said, “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”

Instead, Schumer noted the cascading consequences of the shutdown and laid the responsibility for ending it on Trump and Republicans, saying that the president “skipped town for his second foreign trip in a month.”

“The president should stop focusing on foreign escapades, on ballrooms, on bailouts for Argentina, and start focusing on negotiating with Democrats,” Schumer said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in Chicago that Democrats aren’t budging.

“We want to find a bipartisan agreement that reopens the government immediately,” he said. “We’re going to continue to stand by hardworking federal employees, and our position has not changed over the last several weeks.”

But among the rank-and-file, there are growing signs of bipartisan frustration about the stalemate, with few signs of movement in the Capitol for weeks.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in a floor speech Monday called for the Senate to abandon its typical four-day workweek and gavel in Friday, joking with reporters afterward that she went “rogue.”

“I don’t think we should be going home and just behaving as if this was another week in the United States Senate — not when we have a government shutdown,” Murkowski said. “There is so much, so much that is coming at us like a freight train.”

Murkowski, who has an independent streak, pointed to the looming SNAP deadline and ACA open enrollment as a “pivot point” for Congress. She spent time speaking with several colleagues on the Senate floor Monday, including Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, as well as GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama.

“I thought it was really constructive,” she said about the conversations, adding that lawmakers need to get to a point where “we’re not going to leave the room until we work this out.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson pointed to the looming deadlines Monday and said the onus is on Democrats to relent. Johnson cited the union’s statement during a news conference, saying he hoped it impacted Democrats’ thinking.

“They understand the reality of this,” he said.

But Republicans are facing a tactical divide of their own as they debate whether to hold standalone votes on the Senate floor this week that would ease particular pain points such as the SNAP lapse and paychecks for active-duty troops.

Senate GOP leaders won’t make a final decision until a closed-door lunch Tuesday as they hear out different factions within their conference. But they are wary of easing up on Democrats just as they show signs of fraying and are seen as unlikely to allow votes on the so-called “rifle-shot” bills.

Durbin, for instance, predicted Monday that bills from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would pay air traffic controllers and TSA agents and from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would keep food aid flowing would likely pass with Democratic support.

What was also clear Monday is that Democrats continue to feel comfortable laying the blame for the shutdown at Trump’s feet — especially as he spends the week in Asia.

That colored responses from many Democrats, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who said in a statement that “Trump should spend less time traveling around the world and more time negotiating an end to his shutdown.”

Van Hollen is in talks with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to try to find an agreement on legislation that would pay federal employees and active-duty military troops. Democrats are also proposing limiting Trump’s ability to fire federal employees for the duration of the shutdown.

“We’ve been engaged over the weekend and now,” Van Hollen said Monday.

Another Democrat from a fed-heavy state, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, also invoked Trump Monday in brushing off the union’s new stance.

“The AFGE would not want us to cut a deal and then have Trump fire a bunch of people next week. If we cut a deal and then he did that, they would come to us and say, ‘What the hell were you guys thinking?’” Kaine told reporters.

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Congress

Schumer rolls out Democrats’ midterm energy pitch

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rolled out an energy and climate change agenda Wednesday as a preview of what Democrats have in store if they take the chamber’s majority in November’s elections.

Schumer’s five-point plan seeks to ride the national momentum on affordability, framing Democrats as the party not just of clean energy and fighting climate change, but of lower electricity bills and more jobs.

It touches on some longtime Democratic priorities — like bringing back the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax incentives that President Donald Trump and Republicans rolled back last year — and easing permitting hurdles for wind, solar and other zero-emissions energy sources.

“We can bring new voters and allies into the fight for a cleaner environment by showing how clean energy is affordable energy,” Schumer said.

“With this new expanded coalition, putting us back in the majority, we have an opportunity to put forward new policy solutions, strong policy solutions, that tell the American people we can both lower costs and make real progress on climate change,” he continued.

Schumer presented the plan at the League of Conservation Voters’ annual Capital Dinner, gathering hundreds of donors, lawmakers, environmental staff and others.

The group, long a major Democratic ally, is one of the nation’s top election spenders, and is poised to be a major part of Democrats’ attempts to recover from their 2024 losses.

Clean energy, Schumer said, is “the cheapest and fastest way to add energy to the grid, and reduces our emissions at the same time.”

The Democrats’ plan seeks to build out more electricity transmission and storage, make sure data centers pay their fair share for energy, and better protect consumers from electricity bill increases.

While many of the pillars are longtime priorities on the left, Schumer emphasized some new priorities. The plan puts geothermal and nuclear energy, including fusion, on a similar level to renewables like wind and solar.

Schumer is also promising “a thorough re-examination of the entire structure and incentives within our energy systems … to prioritize lowering costs,” and new efforts to make electricity bills “easier to understand.”

While Democrats have been engaging with Republicans toward bipartisan permitting legislation for all forms of energy, Schumer presented a more partisan permitting concept in his speech.

“Democrats will provide legislative certainty for clean energy projects, so that workers and investors can rebuild the clean energy project ecosystem that Trump has destroyed,” he said, adding that permitting legislation “never, never must come at the expense of our obligation to protect local communities and safeguard the environment.”

Democrats have not been particularly vocal on climate change in their drive to take the Senate and House majorities, as they reexamine the issue’s palatability with voters. Schumer’s rollout shows at least some willingness to focus on climate, but keeps the party’s priority on affordability.

Democrats currently hold 47 of the Senate’s seats, so they would need a net gain of four seats to get the majority. The party is focusing on candidates like former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Gov. Janet Mills in Maine and former Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska to get there, but it’s an uphill battle.

The party has also taken recent steps to push its energy agenda in the Senate. Earlier Tuesday, Democrats forced a vote on a resolution that sought to undo Trump’s implementation of clean energy tax policies. More such resolutions are forthcoming.

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Special election shocker has Florida Republicans nervous about redistricting

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Florida has been viewed for months as the potential capstone of a GOP redistricting campaign, but now Sunshine State Republicans are growing wary after the dramatic flip of two legislative seats in the state — including one where President Donald Trump votes.

Republicans already hold a commanding 20-8 edge over Democrats in the Florida House delegation, and some in the GOP — including Gov. Ron DeSantis — believe they could pick up as many as five more seats with a rare mid-decade redraw of district lines.

Some Florida incumbents are now warning in stark terms it could backfire.

“I think the Legislature needs to be very cognizant of the fact that if they get too aggressive … you could put incumbent members at risk,” GOP Rep. Greg Steube said. Some seats that Republicans previously won by eight or nine points, he said, could instead have only a four- or five-point GOP advantage — putting them in reach for Democrats in a wave election.

DeSantis, citing a state Supreme Court decision from last year and a potential ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, has already called a special session of the state Legislature in April to push ahead with new lines. So far there have been no official maps produced or any signs that lawmakers have started working on them.

Republican anxiety has only grown further after Democrats notched surprising wins in special elections Tuesday, including a Palm Beach County district that contains the Mar-a-Largo resort where Trump lives and votes.

While many in the GOP have brushed off the Democratic gains there and in other states as anomalies, private qualms are growing among the incumbents whose seats could be put at greater risk due to redistricting.

“We keep saying these are kind of one-off things that haven’t gone our way,” said one Florida House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But I’m not seeing any of the one-offs that are going our way.”

“To talk as aggressively as some of what we’ve heard, there’s no way to get there without significantly weakening some districts,” the member added.

House Democrats are hoping to capitalize on the opportunity. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries quickly sent a warning Tuesday night that redistricting could backfire.

“We will crush House Republicans in November if DeSantis tries to gerrymander the Florida congressional map,” Jeffries said in a post on X.

Others are openly objecting to redistricting on more high-minded grounds. Rep. Daniel Webster, a veteran Republican from central Florida, called it a “slippery slope.”

“I’ve been around enough reapportionments to know it can come back and bite you,” he said.

“I don’t like this redistricting stuff,” Jacksonville-area Rep. John Rutherford said, noting south Florida would likely bear the brunt of any changes. “But if they think they can get another two seats or something, have at it.”

Any significant redraw in Florida would likely focus on changing districts that were drawn based on racial considerations, the subject of the court rulings DeSantis has cited. While much of the focus has been on seats held by Democrats, Republicans concede it could lead to changes to the Miami-area district represented by GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Some incumbents are also worried that redistricting — still weeks away — is hindering their reelection campaigns as the midterms approach.

“Why would you knock on doors if you don’t know if those doors are gonna be in your district or not?” Steube said.

The hand-wringing over Florida comes as the fallout from Trump’s monthslong redistricting push continues to ripple through the House. Republicans kicked things off with a surprise effort to draw new maps in Texas, but Democrats countered with an effort to draw California’s lines in their favor.

After months of wrangling in about a dozen states, the whole effort looks to end up close to a wash — after some Republicans tried to warn party leaders the heavy-handed effort could backfire.

A group of House Republicans from Florida privately discussed their concerns about the fallout of yet another redistricting push in their state, several Republicans confirmed — especially amid rising anxiety that Hispanic voters could be turning away from the GOP.

House GOP leaders mostly brushed off the Florida special elections in public comments Wednesday, arguing that low-turnout, off-cycle races shouldn’t be considered midterm bellwethers. But some suggested there are lessons to be learned from Tuesday’s results.

“Surely you look at those and see, are there things we can learn and improve upon when the big election comes?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Wednesday. “And obviously, November is the election that we are focused on.”

The top leaders of the House GOP’s campaign arm, Reps. Richard Hudson of North Carolina and Brian Jack of Georgia, both deferred to the state Legislature on redistricting in Florida Wednesday.

Hudson, the NRCC chair, said Florida’s growing population means redistricting “makes sense to do,” but he said he was more concerned about turnout and other factors.

Jack, the group’s deputy chair for recruiting, similarly talked up the candidates Republicans would be fielding in Florida and elsewhere. As for redistricting, he said, “I defer to the Legislature.”

“It’s up to them,” he said, “not up to us.”

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Congress

Arrington: Fraud cuts for war funding

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House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington is making clear he will push for the “fraud prevention” spending cuts he wants across state and social safety net programs in order to pay for any Iran war funding in a second GOP reconciliation bill.

The Texas Republican is meeting soon this afternoon with Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in Graham’s office to discuss plans.

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