One senator acknowledged the party would ‘get hammered’ for supporting a GOP funding bill
Democrats are afraid of ending the federal government shutdown because they are “terrified of getting the guillotine” from their left-wing base, according to a report.
Senate Democrats “are going to get hammered” if they support a short-term, Republican-led House bill to end the government shutdown, according to an anonymous Democratic senator who spoke with The Hill. Centrist Democrats would have opened the government “yesterday,” the senator said, but fear career-ending backlash from their base.
The shutdown entered its 20th day on Monday, making it among the longest in U.S. history. While many Democratic members of Congress have publicly lamented that millions of federal workers will not receive a paycheck until the government reopens, several—including progressive Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), far-left Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas), and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who makes $193,400 in his position—have opted to keep their own taxpayer-funded salaries, the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this month.
“We would have enough votes” if officeholders “were not terrified of getting the guillotine,” a second Senate Democratic insider told The Hill ahead of left-wing “No Kings” protests over the weekend.
Only three members of the Senate Democratic Caucus have signaled their support for ending the shutdown—Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), and Angus King (Maine), an independent who votes with Democrats—though New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) on Thursday voted to advance a defense funding bill, indicating that she might be willing to break ranks, The Hill noted.
Left-wing activists sharply criticized that vote, with Indivisible national advocacy director Andrew O’Neill saying it “was GOP political theater, and these three Democrats joined right in.”
Fetterman told The Hill that his vote was not a tough choice for him.
“I voted yes to pay our service members,” he said. “That’s service members over party. That’s not baffling to me.”
Read the full article here
