Federal Government Shuts Down After Congress Fails To Reach Deal

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a rally outside the Capitol hours before the shutdown deadline. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

WASHINGTON — Congress failed to pass a spending package by midnight Friday, pushing the federal government into a partial shutdown.

However, within minutes of midnight, leadership laid the foundation to move forward with a three-week funding agreement. The deal could move through Congress by the end of the weekend — in time for federal workers to return to their desks Monday. The Senate is scheduled to meet on Saturday.

The White House and Senate Democrats blamed each other for the failure to reach a deal.

“Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown,” White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told the New York Times: “Every American knows the Republican Party controls the White House, the Senate, the House. It’s their job to keep the government open.”

In the hours before the midnight deadline, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., headed to his nearby apartment, “on standby” in case the House would be called back. The lower chamber passed the bill Thursday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., addressed a rally of DACA supporters on the Capitol lawn.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., floated a possible Democrat-approved amendment to the resolution, which was not officially released. His wife, Marcelle, showed up with dinner.

All three members of Vermont’s delegation opposed the four-week continuing resolution, which also authorizes a children’s health insurance program for six years. They raised concerns about the series of short-term spending packages and the lack of funding for certain initiatives.

One of the central issues that spurred Democrats to object to the short-term bill was the lack of legislative action to continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Under a Trump executive order, the program is set to end in March.

In the evening, Sanders addressed a crowd on the Capitol lawn, calling for a long-term budget package, a DACA extension and other initiatives.

“We need an annual budget not continuing resolutions, and we need that budget to address the crises facing this country,” Sanders said. “And one of the crises facing this country is that in September Donald Trump rescinded an executive order that gave legal protection to 800,000 young people in our country.”

Sanders voiced support for a bill introduced this week that has bipartisan backing in both chambers that would continue the program. He also said there’s a need to fund community health centers, fill vacancies in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and more.

“In other words we have some serious problems and it is not good enough for the Republican leadership to continue to punt, give us temporary budget resolutions,” Sanders said.

When a man in a suit began disrupting a subsequent speaker, yelling about no citizenship without a green card, the crowd turned on him with shouts of “DREAM Act now.” A handful of protesters shuffled him out of the crowd, led by a woman who waved a bright pink pussy hat, the emblem of the women’s march last year.

Around dinnertime, Welch walked through the Senate end of the Capitol carrying a black backpack and sporting hiking boots with his wife, Margaret.

Welch was on his way back to his apartment near the Capitol, to wait.

“It’s unknown to all of us,” he said.

Though the House had passed the resolution the previous night, the body could be called back if the Senate passed a different bill, for instance.

Welch has been in Congress for other shutdowns.

“They’re always bad. Nobody wins in these things,” he said

This time DACA is a major issue, he said, but it’s one of many frustrations. Funding the government through continuing resolutions is not sustainable, he said.

As he left, he said he was “on standby.” He wouldn’t wager a guess at the likelihood of a shutdown.

“I’m not predicting,” he said. “I’m hoping we don’t have one.”

Senators continued to shuttle through the hallways, offering hints to reporters of what could be happening.

Around 10 p.m. Leahy walked slowly to the Senate floor, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters.

“I have never seen it quite so screwed up,” he said, with a sigh.

“I’ve been here under Republican and Democratic presidents where you always had a president that actually wanted to work things out, both Republicans and Democrats,“ he said. “Now you don’t know from minute to minute what they want.”

Leahy, the highest-ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, authored a possible amendment to the Republican-backed resolution with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier in the day, according to Leahy’s staff.

Leahy spokesperson David Carle said the amendment had not been filed Friday afternoon, but was an option on hold as talks continued.

No deal was reached through the day, and by the time the Senate returned to the floor for a vote late Friday evening, it was clear that Democrats and a few Republicans would block the bill from proceeding.

The vote was held open for more than two hours, with only Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left to cast his vote, as lawmakers huddled in conversation.

McConnell ended the vote shortly after midnight — when the partial shutdown had officially begun. He charged that Democrats “held all of us hostage” over the “completely unrelated issue of illegal immigration.”

McConnell blamed Democrats for pushing the issue past the midnight deadline, calling it “their very own government shutdown.”

Schumer responded that the shutdown was a product of “division and discord” on the Republican side.

He said that he negotiated a deal with Trump earlier in the day, noting that he was willing to concede on the border wall — one of Trump’s prize initiatives that is broadly opposed by Democrats. However, the deal fell apart when Trump didn’t coordinate with Congress.

Middlebury College political science professor emeritus Eric Davis said Friday afternoon that a shutdown would feed into the public’s lack of faith in government institutions.

“Right now Americans have low opinion of government in general,” he said. “This just exacerbates that trend.”

Davis said a shutdown over the issues Democrats raised, including DACA, will likely not politically damage the members of Vermont’s delegation in their home state.

“One of the problems with Congress and why it’s held in such low esteem by the American public is that it never does anything except at the last minute,” he said.

Republicans and Democrats have lobbed responsibility for a shutdown at the opposite party. In a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 48 percent of people blame Trump and the GOP for a shut down, while 28 percent lay the blame on Democrats.

However, a CNN poll found that the public deems it more important to avoid a shutdown than to continue DACA.

Gov. Phil Scott released a statement Friday evening declaring that the state is prepared in the event of a shutdown.

State agencies and departments were directed to collect all federal money due to the state this week, according to the administration.

“While the state is prepared for a short-term shutdown, we hope to see a quick resolution to prevent any long-term delay in the distribution of funds that Vermonters rely on, or negative impacts on the economy,” he said.

In December Deputy Secretary of the Administration Brad Ferland estimated that the state had sufficient funds on hand to be in a good position for at least two months of a federal shutdown.