As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding.
Democrats have for weeks demanded that any measure to fund the government include an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans, which were created under Joe Biden and due to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums for enrollees higher.
With Donald Trump’s encouragement, Congress’s Republican leaders refused, sparking a spending standoff that resulted in the longest government shutdown in US history. But the Democrats’ resolve cracked earlier this week, when a splinter group in the Senate joined with the GOP to craft a compromise bill that reauthorizes government funding through January, without extending the tax credits.
The Senate passed that legislation on Monday evening, and the House of Representatives is expected consider it beginning on Wednesday afternoon. The chamber’s top Democrats oppose it, with the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, on Monday calling it a “partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people.
“No matter what comes over to us from the United States Senate to the House of Representatives at some point this week, our position as House Democrats has been crystal clear: we will sit down with any Republicans, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, in order to find a bipartisan path forward, but we’re not down with their ‘my way or the highway’ approach to governance that’s failed the American people,” he said.
On Tuesday, the House’s largest ideological caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, announced its opposition to the measure.
“While New Dems always seek common ground, our coalition remains united in opposition to legislation that sacrifices the wellbeing of the constituents we’re sworn to serve,” chair Brad Schneider said.
“Unfortunately, the Senate-passed bill fails to address our constituents’ top priorities, doing nothing to protect their access to healthcare, lower their costs or curb the administration’s extreme agenda.”
The sentiment appears much the same in the Congressional Progressive caucus, where chair Greg Casar called the measure “a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them”.
The Democratic opposition threatens to make for a tight vote for the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, who has kept the House out of session for more than 50 days in a bid to pressure Senate Democrats into caving to the GOP’s demands.
With a 219-member majority with full attendance, he can only afford to lose two votes on the bill, and Kentucky representative Thomas Massie is likely to vote no.
But Democrats may have their own defectors. Maine’s Jared Golden, who last week announced he would not seek another term representing a district that voted for Trump last year, was the only Democrat in September to vote for a Republican funding bill that did not extend the tax credit. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose Washington state district is similarly friendly to the president, also expressed her support for that bill.
Both lawmakers’ offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how they would vote on the Senate’s compromise.
The compromise bill cleared the Senate on Monday evening by 60 votes, the minimum it needed to clear the chamber’s thresholds for advancement. All Republicans supported the measure’s passage except for Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with eight moderate members of the Democratic caucus, several of whom were recently re-elected, or serving their final terms in office.
That group was composed of Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the party.
While they did not win an extension of the tax credits, the group claimed credit for getting the Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, to agree on holding a vote by mid-December on extending the subsidies. However, it remains to be seen if enough Republicans will vote for its passage, and Johnson has not agreed to put the issue to a vote in the House.
Though the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, did not support the bill publicly, Shaheen told Fox News on Monday that the group “kept leadership informed throughout”. Progressive organizations who backed Schumer’s strategy during the shutdown have now turned on him for allowing the compromise to come together.
Indivisible announced plans to support Democratic candidates in primaries who oppose Schumer remaining as the party’s leader, and MoveOn joined in the calls for him to bow out.
“It is time for Senator Schumer to step aside as minority leader to make room for those who are willing to fight fire with fire when the basic needs of working people are on the line,” MoveOn Political Action’s executive director, Katie Bethell, said.
