Here's why everyone is mad at Chuck Schumer.
The Senate Minority Leader's bizarre plan has been to betray Democratic voters. But as of this writing, things are still up in the air.
So, here's what's happened since the last newsletter, which came out Tuesday:
Our calls worked—or so it seemed. Democratic senators heard from thousands of constituents who told them not to pass the Republican continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government, and on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York announced that he and his Democratic colleagues would not supply the votes necessary for passage. (Republicans needed 60 votes and have only 53 senators.) Here's what Schumer said:
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said on the floor, calling for a one-month funding bill that provides more time to negotiate a deal.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” he said. “I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”
Sounds fairly straightforward—"Our caucus is unified." Even by Wednesday evening, though, rumors were flying that this was a head fake—that Schumer and other Dem senators were secretly planning to help pass the CR after all.
And indeed, by Thursday, the secret plan had been leaked to the press. It was, or is, bizarre. First, a quick explainer: What Republicans actually need 60 votes for is cloture, which basically means ending discussion on a bill and voting on it. As best I understand it, because this bill has a deadline—it needs to be passed by midnight tonight, or the federal government shuts down—refusing to vote for cloture would effectively mean there wasn't enough time to pass it before doing so became moot. After a successful cloture vote, Republicans could pass the CR on a majority vote alone, without help from Democrats.
Back to Schumer's bizarre plan: Though he'd announced on Wednesday that Democrats wouldn't supply votes for cloture, he and other Dems had worked out a backroom agreement with Republicans: Democrats would vote for cloture if they were allowed to offer amendments to the CR. That sounds reasonable enough— Dems could amend the bill, and include some kind of language that would end Elon Musk and DOGE's assault on federal agencies—except that there's nothing that says Republicans have to consider those amendments. They can just vote on the CR without them, and pass it by themselves. And withholding their votes for cloture is the only real leverage Democrats have right now, or will have for months, as the minority party. So Schumer's plan, in essence, has been to pretend Democrats were taking a stand and then immediately stand down, in exchange for nothing.
It isn't clear how he thought he could pull this off without angering Democratic voters. A lot of older politicians (Schumer is 74) seem to not have fully internalized how much the media environment has changed. Or maybe Schumer understood how bad it would look, but was willing to fall on the sword to appease a subset of his constituents: Wall Street, where Trump and Musk still have plenty of supporters despite stock prices continuing to plummet. His term doesn't end until 2028, at which point it's likely he'll retire anyway. And to be clear, Schumer is not the only Dem who wants the Republican CR to pass. His fellow senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, was reportedly heard shouting in a meeting yesterday that Dems needed to pass the bill and avoid a shutdown. There are others who feel the same way and would prefer not to make their stance public, to avoid blowback from voters. At least six of them will need to reveal themselves to pass this thing; we'll see who they are.
All this has been enough to infuriate countless Democratic voters, who want the party to show some kind of fight against Trump and Musk. But what really enraged many is that, shortly after he announced his plan to vote for cloture, the New York Times published an op-ed by Schumer explaining his reasoning.
His explanation matters less than the fact of its publication at all. The fact and timing of its publication strongly suggest that Schumer has known he'd be voting for cloture for days if not weeks now. Even the Senate Minority Leader can't just call up the largest newspaper in the country on Wednesday and ask to write an op-ed for Thursday. So Schumer knew Dems were planning to help Republicans when he said on Wednesday that they weren't. He knew it while voters were being implored to call their Democratic senators. Did he know it two and a half weeks ago, when Representative Brittany Pettersen of Colorado flew in to Washington with her 4-week-old to vote against the Republican budget blueprint that started this process? That's not clear, but he knew Tuesday, when Pettersen and all the other House Dems but one voted against the CR—including Dems in swing districts, who didn't realize they were sticking their necks out for no reason.
Things are still up in the air as I write this, as the cloture vote hasn't happened yet. Protesters gathered outside Schumer's house in Brooklyn this morning, and this list of Dem senators likely to vote yes on cloture went up 30 minutes ago:
If any of them are your senator, it wouldn't hurt to call them again. It's quite possible they didn't expect this level of outrage.
Lastly, if you are wondering whether Schumer's reasons for not wanting a government shutdown have merit, the best answer I can give you is: Yeah, to an extent. There are only bad choices ahead of us at this point. A shutdown is never great. But federal employees—who are on the front lines facing either time off during a shutdown or cuts by DOGE—have indicated they believe a shutdown is the better option. And polling says voters are more likely to blame Trump and Republicans than Democrats for a shutdown. And there's a cost to simply capitulating to Republicans, above and beyond what kind of damage they do: If elected Democrats like Schumer don't fight, voters will lose faith in them and in the party. We've already seen a lot of that, as people ask how we ended up in this situation, with a treasonous criminal back in the White House because Joe Biden's Department of Justice didn't go after Trump aggressively enough. Democratic voters need to see some energy, and soon.
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