America is currently arguing over who is responsible for the government shutdown. Yet any fair reading of appropriations policy, congressional norms, and congressional votes makes it clear that Senate Democrats are to blame. Senate Democrats have reportedly now stepped back from their demands and agreed to keep the government going.
As background, when Washington gets to the October 1st fiscal new year without having passed all of the annual appropriations bills, the affected programs are at risk of closure because Congress has not provided spending authority for the new fiscal year. Typically, Congress passes a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to continue running the endangered programs at the prior year’s spending rate until Congress can finish the appropriations bills.
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These CRs are usually non-controversial and bipartisan. It is rare for either side to use the CR as a bargaining chip for unrelated pet issues, and any such conflicts are usually resolved quickly before any shutdown could occur.
Past shutdowns – such as those in 1995 and 1996 – typically resulted from partisan disagreements over spending levels, which are fully relevant to a government funding bill.
In 2013, Senate Republicans, led by Senator Ted Cruz, violated this long-term bipartisan consensus by carrying through on their threat to filibuster a CR unless Democrats agree to repeal ObamaCare. Democrats and the media savaged the Republicans as “legislative arsonists” for holding the government hostage to a non-germane demand. After two weeks, Republicans dropped their filibuster and re-opened the government.
In 2018, Senate Democrats are pursuing the same path as did Republicans in 2013. They have filibustered a CR that would keep the government open because it does not give in to their demands for unrelated immigration reforms related to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.
For those accepting the broad consensus that Senate Republicans were to blame for the 2013 shutdown, basic intellectual consistency shows that Senate Democrats are equally to blame in 2018. Only the parties are reversed.
Critics respond that President Trump has given mixed signals on the immigration negotiations, and that some Republicans also support DACA legislation. That is irrelevant. Immigration policy is not germane (i.e. relevant) to a government funding bill, so it has no standing to be included. In the past, with very few exceptions, non-budget provisions were added to CRs only when they were non-controversial and did not endanger the ultimate passage of the CR. Neither party believed in shutting down the government over a rider.
Notably, the CR itself is non-controversial. It would keep the full government open, extend the expired Children’s Health Insurance Program, and continue the delay of certain health-related taxes. Democrats blocked a bill they seemingly support – with the effect of harming government workers, CHIP enrollees, and those dependent on many government services – in order to protest a side issue that is not even germane to the bill. Democrats reasonably assert that CHIP should have been renewed months ago, yet blocking the CR actually extends the very delay they are protesting. It makes no sense.
Nor are the immigration reforms urgent. The DACA program they seek to extend does not expire until March 6th.
Furthermore, the principle that the government can be held hostage to some outside proposals is ultimately destructive to governance. The importance that Republicans in 2013 gave to ObamaCare repeal is equal to the importance of DACA by Democrats today. The minority party will always have countless proposals it would like to force through. Turning routine yet vital government funding bills into an annual opportunity for the minority party to dictate unrelated policy priorities is a recipe for chaos and repeated government shutdowns – which Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer explained in 2013.
Let us move next to the vote tallies. Yes, Republicans have the Presidency as well as a House and Senate majority. This does not mean they fully “control” the government because the Senate requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass most legislation. Even if every Republican senator supported a bill, Republicans would still need nine Senate Democrats to overcome a filibuster and move towards passage.
Some suggest that Senate Republicans have no right to blame Democrats for the shutdown because only 45 of the 50 present Republican Senators voted to break the filibuster (although Sen. McConnell’s “no” vote was due to a procedural requirement), and they needed five crossover Democrats to reach 50 votes. However, even if all Republicans were unified, Democrats still had the 41 votes necessary to filibuster. Overall, 90 percent of Senate Republicans voted to move towards passage, while nearly 90 percent of Senate Democrats voted to filibuster and shut down the government. The CR had the overall majority support to pass without a filibuster.
In short, both the overwhelming majority of the CR’s opposition – and the minimum 41 required votes to filibuster this majority-supported bill – came from the Democrats.
Finally, some blame the Republicans for not persuading the Democrats to drop their opposition. Such a viewpoint essentially gives the minority party all the power to dictate the compromise. And why would the minority party ever bargain in good faith when its continued opposition will be laid at the feet of the majority party? Sometimes the minority party is simply unreasonable and uncompromising – as Democrats like Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer repeatedly said during the 2013 shutdown.
Legislation to keep the government open has long been non-controversial and bipartisan. Yet, before reversing course, Senate Democrats voted overwhelmingly to filibuster a government-funding bill that has majority Senate support, simply to protest an outside issue that is not even germane to this bill. Democrats voted to shut down the government. They are responsible for the consequences.
Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on twitter @Brian_Riedl.
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