Welcome to The Fill From the Hill, a recurring political column where one University Times writer dissects the key political topics and controversies in the news, from domestic politics to international affairs. This week tackles the Democrats who broke from their party to bring the government shutdown to an end. Despite my position, this column is not representative or a reflection of the opinions of the UT Staff nor the UT itself.
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After a historic 43-day shutdown, seven Senate Democrats and one independent have broken from their party to join Republicans to bring an end to the shutdown.
In a 60-40 vote late Sunday night, the Senate voted on what is known as “cloture,” which would end the filibuster and move an amended version of the House’s Continuing resolution (CR) that was passed in September through the legislative process. The full vote that took place on Monday night passed by the same split.
The senators who voted with Republicans on this measure were Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and independent Angus King of Maine (who often caucuses with the Democrats).
In a press conference on Sunday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “This health care crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home, that I cannot in good faith support this [continuing resolution] that fails to address the health care crisis.”
Despite not being among the group who voted to end the shutdown, Schumer faced harsh criticism from within the ranks of his party, as well as his voter base, for not holding the line stronger.
While not explicitly calling for his resignation, Sen. Mike Levin of California on X criticized Schumer, and said that Senate Democrats would be “wise to move on from his leadership.”
The deal these Democrats agreed to includes a plan for a “mid-December” vote on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that were central to this fight. While Senate Majority Leader John Thune has agreed to this, in a press conference held on Nov. 6, House Speaker Mike Johnson couldn’t guarantee it.
The CR passed by the Senate now heads back to the House and should face a full vote by Wednesday, Nov. 12. This vote will bring the House back in session after having been dismissed for 53 days when they passed their original CR.
Now that the table has been set, let’s get into our views on Democrats bringing an end to the government shutdown.
Samuel Valencia: These seven Democrats (and one independent) are cowards.
The issue with the modern Democratic Party is that they believe they are governing with the other party in good faith. But if it wasn’t abundantly obvious (which it should be for literally everyone), the Republican Party is not interested in that. The Republicans are so tied to the hip with President Trump that, purely on principle alone, anything that would benefit the American people is off the table.
Surprisingly, Schumer isn’t one of the names attached to this “yes” vote, but this isn’t shocking because he is still reeling from his verbal spanking earlier this year.
So now, instead of actually putting up a fight for healthcare for the nearly 20 million Americans who will be left to fend for themselves come Jan. 1, 2026, Democrats sold them out on a promise! A promise that, even if it is kept, will fail so spectacularly hard because of the likelihood that Trump will nuke the vote’s chances.
Just to really twist the knife a little harder, Democrats now have the chance to do the same old song and dance to entice voters this time next year when the midterm elections come around. They will talk about how they tried to save healthcare, but those dastardly Republicans took it away and that’s why we, the people, should vote for them. Never mind the fact that even if we do elect them, they’ll continue to do absolutely nothing to actually help the people.
As someone who has only been able to vote in the last three elections, I have been shown time and time again that the Democrats love to win, but once they do, have absolutely zero clue what to do. They say the things that get their base riled up, but have absolutely no follow-through. Somehow, the faux autocrat currently in charge of the country has more follow-through and that is a sentence that should never be uttered in any context.
The worst part about this is, for five weeks, federal workers, despite some of them being on board with this shutdown fight, have had to endure economic hardship. And for Democrats to pull the rug out and say, “Okay, let’s make a deal,” is just asinine. It is incredibly irresponsible for the Democratic Party to endanger the lives of federal employees, just to cave to a promise of a deal.
Even if Democrats get their vote in the Senate, it’s almost 100% certain that if it gets a vote in the House, the bill will fail. And that figure doesn’t even factor in the fact that the president hates the ACA and has no interest in helping it survive. So all of this was for nothing and now we have to just hope and pray that Republicans will see the light and help the American people. (But I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
If you ask me, we need to primary every single one of these “Democrats” and replace them with people who won’t just stand idly by while the president and his goons tear this country down bit by bit. But the reality is that, when it comes to the party whose only plan for the 2024 election was “guys, we can’t elect Trump again,” any chance for change is a fever dream.
