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The shutdown is starting to squeeze Democratic senators: The largest federal employees union is asking them to end the shutdown, more employees are about to miss a paycheck, and food stamp beneficiaries will miss a payment this weekend.
It’s giving some Democrats heartburn, but there are no signs yet that they are switching their votes on Republicans’ stopgap bill, which could get another vote as soon as Tuesday, Semafor is told.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the union’s position “has a lot of impact” and Democrats would discuss it this week — in tandem with their push for a solution to rising health care premiums.
“You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., of the conundrum. “If you were to ask me to go right now to vote, I would vote no” on the stopgap, he said.
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Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who supported a bill to pay essential government workers last week, acknowledged worries about the shutdown’s impact. But the incumbent Democrat said his constituents are steering him forward on multiple fronts.
“My constituents want to avoid massive increases in health insurance premiums; they want the federal government open. They want the US House to be at work; they want the president engaged,” Ossoff said. “I hope that there is major progress in the immediate term.”
Several other Democrats said that the confluence of deadlines, along with union angst, is doing little to change the fundamental dynamics. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he understood why reporters are asking Democrats about the union’s position but said to him, “it’s the same story every single day. The story is, [Republicans] refuse to negotiate.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who went “rogue” and took to the Senate floor to call on the Senate to stay in session until the shutdown ends, said a weekend of missed paychecks and food aid payments might change things for her colleagues.
“If there is something that is the precipitating factor, it’s not that the unions have changed, but that you have this date that is so pivotal,” Murkowski said of Nov. 1, when insurance markets open up and the benefits cliff becomes real.