Congress

Democrats’ shutdown endgame is sketchy as deadline looms

Published

1 year ago

September 18, 2025

Democrats are gearing up to reject a GOP stopgap funding bill and potentially spark a government shutdown. What happens then, no one seems to know.

Two weeks ahead of the key deadline, party leaders are staking out a rhetorical hard line demanding that their Republican counterparts come to the negotiating table to discuss concessions on health care and other issues.

They released an alternative funding patch Wednesday that extends government funding through the end of October and tacks on a host of policy demands, including an extension of health care subsidies, the repeal of Medicaid cuts in the GOP megabill and more.

Democrats hope the counteroffer will kindle bipartisan talks. But Republicans are instead accusing them of hypocrisy, citing all the times they insisted the GOP had to swallow a “clean” short-term funding bill in past shutdown fights.

Still, under tremendous pressure from their base to show that they are willing to fight President Donald Trump, Democrats are flirting with a politically risky shutdown without a firm exit plan or even an idea of what victory might look like.

“We may not have the luxury of a victory scenario,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse. I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”

Thus far, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have focused on the lowest common denominator uniting the various factions inside their ranks: demanding negotiations in return for Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown — which are necessary due to the Senate filibuster.

But their GOP counterparts, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have been more than happy to turn the tables and paint Democrats as the ones making unreasonable demands.

Already chafing at the lack of GOP outreach, Democrats were further inflamed by Trump, who said on Friday that Republicans shouldn’t “even bother dealing with them” on a funding deal, Senate math notwithstanding.

“We have a lot of diverse views in the caucus, but we’re all professional politicians and an iron law in politics is that if you want someone’s vote, you have to ask what it would take to get it,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is in line to be the next Democratic whip. “And they haven’t even asked.”

Unlike in March, when Schumer flinched in a similarstandoff, party leaders are now betting they’re on firmer political ground for a fight. But it’s still not clear just how comfortable Democrats, who have generally tried to portray themselves as Capitol Hill’s “adults in the room,” will feel as a possible Oct. 1 shutdown grows nearer — or after one comes to pass.

Asked Wednesday night if he was willing to shut the government down, Schumer bristled: “Ask the Republicans if they are willing to shut the government down.”

Democrats could lose some of their own members on the GOP bill. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has already vowed to support it, and several other Democratic senators have yet to put themselves in the “no” column with the whip effort still underway.

Jeffries privately huddled with swing-district lawmakers Wednesday morning to hear out their concerns. Most of them, while publicly declining to commit to opposing the stopgap funding bill, are staking out conditions for support that the GOP is unlikely to give them this month — or ever.

There are few signs from Republicans that they will be any more amenable to opposition demands if Senate Democrats reject the seven-week GOP funding bill and the government potentially shuts down.

Asked about the idea that Republicans had to give Democrats something in return for their votes, the typically affable Thune snapped Wednesday, arguing that Republicans supported similar funding bills more than a dozen times in recent years.

“What we’re talking about right now is giving the appropriators a chance to actually pass bills. … Is that difficult to understand?” Thune said. “Where are we supposed to do big policy initiatives on a seven-week extension to fund the government?”

Thune indicated this week that Schumer is free to call him or come to his office for a meeting. Democrats believe the South Dakota Republican, as majority leader, has to initiate the negotiations.

Meanwhile, there is hardly a firm consensus on what Democrats would consider a worthy trade for their votes beyond a general emphasis on health care. Most Democrats agree they need to push for an extension of health insurance subsidies that are set to expire next year as a baseline demand. Others want to push for the unlikely reversal of the Medicaid cuts from the GOP’s “big, beautiful” bill. Still others want firm protections against future Trump administration attempts to withhold congressionally approved spending.

“We expect them to come and negotiate and to live up to what they told their voters back in ’24, not even a year ago, what they were going to do, which was lower costs. And health care is a huge part of that,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told reporters Wednesday.

Many of those demands were included in Democrats’ alternative stopgap released Wednesday. But GOP leaders insist there is no way to cut a deal in the time remaining — even on extending the expiring health subsidies, which has some Republican support. Schumer and Jeffries have been cagey about possibly swallowing a short-term funding punt now in exchange for potential negotiations later.

Asked Wednesday evening if getting a commitment to work on issues like the health care subsidies would be enough to get Democrats on board with a stopgap, Schumer did not definitively reject the idea.

“We have two weeks,” he said. “They should sit down and talk to us and we maybe can get to a good proposal, let’s see. But when they don’t talk to us, there’s no hope of getting to a good proposal.”

And pressed Wednesday about whether their calls for “bipartisan negotiation” meant that any talks had to be concluded by Sept. 30 or if ongoing talks would be enough, several Democratic senators declined to answer directly.

“That’s a very smart question. I’m not sure I know the answer,” said Schatz, adding that Thune’s “come by anytime” rhetoric is not the way things should work.

More generally, a sense of gung-ho enthusiasm about a shutdown fight was hard to detect inside the Democratic ranks.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers who would be furloughed in a shutdown, suggested it was a little too early to go to the mattresses.

“What is today — the 17th of September?” he said. “Let’s have a debate about the alternative.”

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader who joined Schumer to advance the GOP funding bill in March, indicated Wednesday that he expects to vote against Republicans’ proposal this time.

But asked if he was comfortable going into a shutdown, Durbin rejected the premise.

“There’s another option available,” he said. “And that’s bipartisan negotiation.”

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

19 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

32 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

6 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.