Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has shifted his strategy in the ongoing government shutdown, now embracing a version of a plan Republicans briefly considered — and later abandoned — to ease the shutdown’s impact on some federal workers and aid recipients.
After previously withholding Democratic votes in a bid to secure an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, Schumer is now advocating for a partial reopening of the government that would not include those subsidies in the deal, Axios reported.
The move appears aimed at shifting more of the blame for the growing hardships caused by the government shutdown onto Republicans, though Schumer and most Democrats are the ones who have refused to back a clean continuing resolution (CR) in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass it.
Currently, there are only 53 Republicans in the upper chamber.
“Democrats will introduce a clean, standalone bill today to … keep SNAP benefits flowing,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) decision not to move forward with a “rifle shot” funding strategy has given Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and top Democrats an opening to increase pressure on Republicans, Axios reported.
Thune had floated the idea of passing targeted bills to fund specific parts of the government after his broader attempts to fully or partially reopen it failed three times. However, Republican leaders ultimately concluded that such an approach would weaken their negotiating leverage.
The plan was shelved during a closed-door luncheon on Tuesday, where Vice President J.D. Vance — a former senator from Ohio — voiced strong opposition to the proposal.
Democrats in the Senate have held up the House-passed clean CR for more than a month, leaving the government shut down as funding for SNAP runs out, and as US military personnel and hundreds of thousands of federal employees go without pay.
“This is starting to become very real. They are playing with people’s actual lives,” House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said on “Fox & Friends” Thursday.
On Wednesday, Thune delivered an impassioned speech on Capitol Hill, accusing Democrats of disregarding the growing impact of the government shutdown by noting that Republicans had already voted 13 times to reopen the government.
“Let me just point out, if I might, that we are 29 days into a Democrat shutdown,” Thune said, his voice rising. “SNAP recipients shouldn’t go without food. People should be getting paid in this country. And we’ve tried to do that 13 times. You voted no 13 times.”
As Democrats pressed for an immediate vote, Thune grew visibly exasperated, turning toward the Democratic side of the chamber.
“You all just figured out, 29 days in, that, oh, there might be some consequences? There are people who’ll run out of money? Yeah, we’re 29 days in,” he said, slapping the lectern for emphasis. “At some point, the government runs out of money. My aching back. You finally realize this thing has consequences.”
The exchange underscored the deepening frustration among Senate Republicans, who argue that Democrats are deliberately stalling a reopening of the government to extract concessions on unrelated spending priorities, including renewed subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
“This isn’t a political game,” Thune said. “These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about.”
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The impasse comes as millions of SNAP recipients face the prospect of missing benefits at the end of the month.
Both parties have introduced competing bills to address the program’s funding lapse. Luján’s Democratic-backed measure focuses solely on SNAP, while Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has proposed a broader Republican bill that includes funding for both food aid and military pay.
Thune, however, dismissed both standalone efforts as distractions from the larger issue — Democrats’ refusal to approve a continuing resolution that would reopen the government in full.