Senate Democrats Weigh Their Government Funding Demands — If Any

Senate Democrats are back to the drawing board on what concessions they’ll want — if any — from Republicans in exchange for votes for government funding.

“I don’t want to see another government shutdown,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said. “I’ve seen those. I’ve had enough of them.”

Government funding is set to expire on Jan. 30, and Senate Democrats will once again hold outsize power over whether or not the government stays open. Appropriations bills are subject to a 60-vote threshold in the upper chamber, meaning at least seven Senate Democrats would need to vote with every Senate Republican in order to avert a shutdown, or to advance government funding bills in the weeks leading up to the expiration date.

That — in theory — gives Democrats leverage on what they can demand. But none of their asks have worked out so far and most senators are hoping a normal appropriations process will save them from having to make a decision.

In the March funding fight, Democrats did not extract any legislative concessions. In September, they demanded a clean extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. When Republican leadership wouldn’t oblige, Democrats did force a shutdown. That shutdown ended when a handful of Senate Democrats caved 43-days later with very little to show for it, save for a promised vote on health care that they lost last week.

Now, Senate Democrats are weighing their options. Nobody wants another shutdown, which members on both sides of the aisle agree was costly and painful for millions of Americans. The optimistic view, that a number of them share, is that the appropriations process will take care of a potential shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is pushing for a vote on a batch of appropriations bills this week (the outlook for those bills in the House is still questionable).

“What we have been doing in Senate Appropriations has been a pretty good process,” Sen. Gary Peters, a member of the Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS. “It’s never ideal, but it’s been a lot better than it has been in the past.”

Thune told NOTUS on Tuesday that “it’s really important that we do everything we can to consolidate support for getting on the bills and and trying to transact the funding of the government in a way that would prevent” a shutdown from happening.

The GOP leader added that he’d spoken with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as recently as Tuesday morning, and said he’s “hopeful that there will be a convergence around getting on the bills and moving them in a way that would prevent us from having to deal at the end of January with another shutdown.”

Still, some Democratic senators are considering their options ahead of the next government funding deadline, with health care cited as a common concern. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, another member of the Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS there are a number of policy areas that Democrats could use their leverage to address.

“We got a long list,” Van Hollen said. “We need to revamp the tax code to make it work for working people, not just the superrich.”

Van Hollen added that the expiring ACA subsidies are still a major issue Democrats want to press on. Come January, the more than 20 million Americans that rely on the tax credits could experience significant price hikes.

Sen. Ron Wyden told NOTUS that Democrats will have to see what bipartisan negotiations on health care look like closer to the January date. But Wyden added that he’s open to utilizing any avenue to tackle the health care issue.

“The fact is, there is urgency,” Wyden said. “But we’ll have to see where things stand then. Obviously, I’m interested in lowering people’s premiums now and I’ll do everything I can to get that done in the future.”

Schumer, at his weekly press conference Tuesday, declined to say whether he would instruct Democrats to shut down the government again over the expiring tax credits, calling instead for Republicans to extend the subsidies before the end of the year.

“The bottom line is very simple,” Schumer said. “The way to solve this problem, because the toothpaste is already out of the tube, is get it done by Jan. 1. The Republicans, if they care so much and feel the heat, should make sure they pass our bill.”

There are negotiations separately on a health care package led by Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno and Susan Collins that would extend subsidies by two years, with other conditions. Thune has said he expects movement on health care this week, but senators involved in those discussions have forecast some positive progress on the issue.

Beyond health care, other issues could remain on the negotiating table. Some Democratic senators said the party should use the funding deadline to push Republicans on affordability as Democrats rally around it as a winning campaign issue.

“The stuff that is really hitting my constituents every day is the cost of rent and health care and groceries, and the stuff they need to live their lives,” Sen. Mark Kelly said. “And we need to do more, especially right now when the president is not addressing this at all.”

Other senators, including Sen. Elissa Slotkin, said they haven’t thought about what Democrats should prioritize ahead of the next deadline. But with Republicans in control, Democrats have come under significant pressure to utilize these votes to achieve at least some of their legislative goals.

Though Schumer wasn’t part of the group that negotiated a deal to reopen the government in November without a commitment on health care, some House Democrats and Senate candidates called on him to step down after the vote.

But, some Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee still say the funding bills passed by the committee already addressed many of Democrats’ most important legislative priorities. Sen. Chris Coons said he ultimately just wants to see the Senate get its appropriations work done this time around.

“The bills that have already passed the Senate Appropriations Committee by a huge bipartisan margin, 26-3, reject many of Trump’s ill-conceived and inappropriate cuts,” Coons said. “I feel pretty good about the bills we passed out of committee and I want us to hold those levels.”