{"id":12283,"date":"2025-08-13T08:46:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/chris-murphy-goes-all-in-on-funding-bill-boycott-as-dems-seek-bipartisanship\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T08:46:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:46:42","slug":"chris-murphy-goes-all-in-on-funding-bill-boycott-as-dems-seek-bipartisanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/chris-murphy-goes-all-in-on-funding-bill-boycott-as-dems-seek-bipartisanship\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Murphy goes all in on funding bill boycott as Dems seek bipartisanship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Chris Murphy has been warning for months that voters want Democrats to fight. This summer, the Connecticut senator is picking a battle that puts him at odds with his Democratic colleagues.<\/p>\n

Murphy has made surprising moves over the last month to protest bipartisan government funding talks as a member of the Appropriations Committee, demonstrating his vision of what opposition to President Donald Trump should look like and further stoking speculation about his own presidential ambitions.<\/p>\n

The third-term senator said in a recent interview that Trump “doesn’t give a fuck what we write\u201d into spending legislation. And so he sees no reason to participate in the drafting of funding bills if the president is going to keep withholding billions of dollars Congress already approved and goading Republican senators to claw back more.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single day, there’s new evidence that our democracy is falling, and you’ve got to take stands. You have to take fights,\u201d Murphy explained. \u201cI just worry \u2014 every time that we go along with these appropriations bills, we’re putting a bipartisan veneer of endorsement on an illegal process that’s ultimately part of his campaign to destroy our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the top Democrat on the appropriations panel that funds the Department of Homeland Security, Murphy occupies a role that has historically demanded across-the-aisle collaboration. But in recent weeks, he opposed all spending measures advanced during Senate Appropriations Committee markups for which he was present, challenged his Republican counterpart on the DHS funding bill and voted \u201cno\u201d on the Senate\u2019s first bipartisan funding package of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m nothing if not consistent. I don\u2019t like the position I\u2019m in,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cIt\u2019s lonely. 28-to-1 votes are lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, Murphy isn\u2019t slamming his colleagues for embracing bipartisan negotiations, and his peers aren\u2019t directly criticizing his approach. But they aren\u2019t exactly praising him either.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has the right to his opinion,” said the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, Patty Murray of Washington. “And I just have the opinion that the more we can do to get bills done, the better chance we have of getting better things for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, one of Murphy\u2019s friends and another senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said Democrats have a duty to at least attempt to strike a cross-party compromise on federal spending ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not his spokesperson,\u201d said Schatz, who is in line to be the chamber\u2019s Democratic whip in the next Congress. \u201cSo all I can say is: We’ve been demanding a bipartisan process. So when there’s a step in that direction, I think it\u2019s our obligation to try to be constructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Murphy has never been a moderate, he has grown rapidly into a liberal firebrand in recent years. Once best known on Capitol Hill for his advocacy for gun control and his foreign policy expertise, he’s now a frequent anti-Trump voice on cable news shows and has waded into controversial social topics like the nation\u2019s \u201cmale identity\u201d crisis<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Murphy\u2019s latest political stand against Trump comes as his name is floated for a bigger-stage battle against Republicans \u2014 this time as a presidential contender in 2028.<\/p>\n

If the 52-year-old senator seeks the Democratic nomination in three years, his protest of government funding bills could help differentiate him as a candidate who fought the Trump administration with more than just verbal criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does fit, right? These are strategies that would make sense if he’s interested in a national platform and to run for office like president,\u201d said Hans Noel, a Georgetown University professor who studies presidential nominations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s some appeal to a lot of voters \u2014 of fighting \u2014 especially at the national stage, where he doesn’t have to worry about winning over allies for legislative progress,\u201d Noel continued. \u201cMurphy has been somebody who\u2019s been talking on a national stage for a long time. It\u2019s not completely new. But he\u2019s somebody who\u2019s got that kind of appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past week, Murphy spent his birthday at an event with progressives in Arizona, where he talked broadly about the need for Democrats to balance opposition with real policy commitments: \u201cWe can\u2019t just be against Donald Trump. We\u2019ve got to give people a vision of something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Trump\u2019s election last November, Murphy has grown a beard, announced the end of his 17-year marriage and sparked rumors about romantic ties to a prominent Democratic strategist. In April, he hosted a town hall back in rural North Carolina \u2014 more than 500 miles from his blue home state. Then this summer, he launched a PAC<\/u><\/a> aimed at taking on Trump and Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n

Murphy hasn\u2019t always resisted negotiations with Republicans. In 2022, after a gunman left 21 people dead inside a Texas elementary school, he undertook weeks of painstaking talks that resulted in the first significant federal gun-control legislation in two decades. It was the culmination of a nearly decade-long fight for Murphy, who represented Sandy Hook Elementary School in the House at the time of that devastating 2012 shooting.<\/p>\n

His next foray into bipartisan talks did not have a happy ending. Last year he scrupulously crafted the high-profile bipartisan border deal with Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, in an attempt to enact Congress\u2019 first major immigration overhaul in more than three decades. Then Trump chilled Republican support<\/u><\/a> for the bill.<\/p>\n

To Murphy, it signaled that Republicans couldn\u2019t be trusted to be good-faith actors in negotiations to fund the government: \u201cI think that drama was early proof that they’re never going to cross him,\u201d he said of Republicans\u2019 loyalty to Trump.<\/p>\n

This belief was further cemented when Murphy\u2019s GOP colleagues cleared Trump\u2019s $9 billion rescission request last month targeting public broadcasting and foreign aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can say that they’re going to honor the words on the page,\u201d Murphy said. Yet if Trump \u201cdecides to ignore the law,\u201d he continued, \u201cI just don’t think that my Republican colleagues are going to really fight to protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic leadership\u2019s interest in engaging in bipartisan funding negotiations, from which Murphy is abstaining, is a relatively new development. Just a month ago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer penned a lengthy \u201cdear colleague\u201d letter insinuating that his members should cut off cross-party talks if Republicans accepted the White House\u2019s rescissions package.<\/p>\n

Nine days later, Senate Republicans banded together to pass that bill. And five days after that, Schumer stood with his House counterpart<\/u><\/a>, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, to announce that Democrats still \u201cwant to pursue a bipartisan, bicameral appropriations process.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has left Murphy as the lone Democratic appropriator continually opposing the funding bills his colleagues are trying to advance, even as he readily admits it\u2019s not the substance of the spending measures he\u2019s against.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bills themselves are good, bipartisan bills,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cIt’s just \u2014 I don’t believe that anything in there is actually going to be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the case Murphy said he wants to get through to Sen. Katie Britt, the Alabama Republican who chairs the Homeland Security appropriations panel opposite Murphy. The two lawmakers were seen last month in a heated exchange<\/u><\/a> in the well of the Senate floor after passage of the clawback request. Britt described the conversation, captured by C-SPAN cameras, as \u201ca spirited dialogue,\u201d vowing: \u201cI\u2019ll continue to work in good faith, as I always have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy, however, said negotiations on the DHS funding bill will be meaningless if Trump and Republicans are going to undermine the spending directives when the measure becomes law. \u201cWe had an animated discussion,\u201d Murphy said of his talk with Britt. \u201cObviously it’s hard to write a bill when the administration is going to stab you in the back as soon as you write it, especially in a space as difficult as immigration and DHS.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to specific examples of how Trump has already undermined appropriators, including the president\u2019s efforts to fund the controversial \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d immigration detention center in Florida by diverting money Congress appropriated for \u201chumane\u201d alternatives to detainment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you know,\u201d Murphy continued, \u201che’s going to use the money in this budget to treat immigrants like animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus and Cassandra Dumay contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Murphy has been warning for months that voters want Democrats to fight. This summer, the Connecticut senator is picking a battle that puts him at odds with his Democratic colleagues. Murphy has made surprising moves over the last month to protest bipartisan government funding talks as a member of the Appropriations Committee, demonstrating his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}