An update from Capitol Hill as we approach a new government shutdown record

Jared Serbu As far as the government shutdown, which is obviously the biggest news in D.C. Over the past month, let’s start there. What has changed over the last few days, if anything, other than it is now November?

Mitchell Miller That’s true. A lot has actually changed just over the last few days. We’re now in day 34, and what happened over the weekend has really, I think, altered the dynamic. There has been talk about getting pressure points throughout this entire ordeal, and some of the biggest pressure points really took place over the week. Of course, the cutoff of SNAP benefits, essentially what used to be called “food stamps,” for 42 million of Americans, cut off. And that is a huge ordeal, both parties blaming each other, the administration saying that it can’t release the money because the appropriation was never made for this. Or it was made, but it was not re-appropriated, if you will, with the continuing resolution. And then on the other side, Democrats charging that the Republicans could actually release this money if they really wanted to, that there are contingency funds. And then of course we have a legal battle in the middle of all that. But for the millions of Americans who rely on what is nearly $200 in monthly payments so that they can get groceries, these are the people that are really being hurt right now. And so that is a huge pressure point. And then you also have the Affordable Care Act and its open enrollment started on November 1st, on Saturday, as well. And this is, of course, the big pushing point for Democrats who say that they need to get Republicans to discuss the extension of the subsidies for the ACA. Otherwise, these insurance rates are going to go sky high at the end of the year when these subsidies expire. And what Democrats have been pointing out throughout the weekend is that many people now, for the first time, are looking at what their costs could be. And so that’s been a big point that Democrats have been making, saying that here is, for example, a couple in Virginia that was paying X amount and now they’re paying more than double if this doesn’t go through. So all of this to say that there is building pressure now to try to reopen the government as we get into, now we’ve been in this for over a month, which is pretty remarkable.

Jared Serbu And I almost wonder if that ACA subsidy point might end up being more influential across both parties and across both chambers, just in the sense that, and maybe I’m wrong about this, but my going in assumption on that is the effects are gonna cover broader swaths of people with different socioeconomic statuses in basically every congressional district in the country. Is that a fair assumption or am I going out too far on a limb?

Mitchell Miller No, I think that’s correct and this is a point that members of both parties are really concerned about. Now, on the Republican side, they say that Democrats set up the subsidies and that they actually allowed them to sunset at the end of this year. So they say it’s really on the Democrats. On the other side, the Democrats say, look, to your point, there are many states across the country, red states included, that have large numbers of people who rely on these subsidized health insurance premiums in connection with the Affordable Care Act. And so this is something that has always been talked about as the potential off-ramp. Now the Republicans, what they would like to do is say, okay, many of them will say, we’ll accept the fact that this extension needs to occur, but you’ve got to rein in the costs. And you have to have either caps or more strict limitations on who can actually receive this money. And then the Democrats on the other hand say this has to be done and they of course have been using this as a political leverage point because that’s what happens during these shutdown showdowns. So I think at some point we’re going to have some kind of agreement related to that. What it will actually entail, how deeply involved does President Trump get into all of this remains to be seen. So there’s a lot of questions there, but certainly that is the big issue.

Jared Serbu And then also on the topic of how this ends, we heard some commentary from the President on Friday kind of nudging the Senate in the direction of maybe blowing up the filibuster to end this. How seriously should we take that prospect? Can we tell at this point how realistic something like that might be?

Mitchell Miller Well, certainly, whenever the President says something, you have to pay attention to it. And that is a huge one, the so-called “nuclear option.” But I think within Congress itself, and specifically within the Senate, since it, of course, affects the Senate — those 60-vote filibuster — there’s real reservations about doing that. And even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who goes along with virtually everything that the President said, he was asked about this on Friday. And he said he’ll defer to the President, but essentially, he said he thinks that the President was just showing his frustration with the whole fact that this cannot get done, that there’s been this clean continuing resolution for so long and it hasn’t been passed. But I just don’t think that there is the appetite to actually get rid of the filibuster despite the frustration, which is certainly understandable when you’ve had 34 days of a shutdown. But of course when the Republicans are in power now they could quickly do that. On the other hand if they are no longer in power and there’s a Democratic President or a Democratic Senate in power, then everything changes. And so both sides are very leery about this. And what’s really interesting about this is if you think about it, the Senate filibuster — although some people might say well this is kind of in the policy weeds — it really is the reason that we have had this for more than a month. This would get through right away, of course, if the Senate Republicans just had a majority and said, okay, we can pass this, because on these 13 votes that the Senate has taken, they’ve had the majority on all of those votes, but because they can’t get those five extra Democrats and get the 60 votes, this has stretched out for weeks on end.

Jared Serbu Can you maybe spend a minute or two on why that filibuster for legislation is something that senators of both parties still see as sacrosanct even after it’s been gotten rid of for nominees?

Mitchell Miller Yeah, absolutely, because there is really nothing, with the country so in deep red and deep blue parts of the country, there is nothing left politically that brings these parties together. You’ve completely wiped out essentially the centrist lawmaker that used to be in Congress. And so because you don’t have that ability to cross the aisle nearly as much as you used to, you have to have a forcing mechanism because these people just will not get together on any issue. And the filibuster does force lawmakers across the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, to have to work together, to get those extra votes so that you get 60 votes, so you have a little bit of buy-in from both parties on any type of issue. And if you don’t have that, with the fact that there’s so little trust right now in Congress, and specifically even with the appropriations process, which used to be very bipartisan, really many of these lawmakers just know that they have to have this forcing mechanism, the filibuster, to bring them together.

Jared Serbu And it may be that it takes getting into an intractable situation like this, where it just looks like there’s no hope to finally, you know, to finally break that. And I guess it’s anybody’s guess as to when we get to that point where senators say we’re literally never going to get anything done with this threshold in place because of that lack of trust.

Mitchell Miller Right. And I think they’ve seen what has happened, to your point earlier about taking it away for example, these lower court justices and allowing them to just be rolled through on majorities and the fact that various people at the Supreme Court, for example, can get nominated and then pulled through with a just a simple majority. I think a lot of lawmakers recognize the fact that if you continue to go in that direction, you’re just going to have a flip-flop every time that you have a four-year election. If one of the parties doesn’t win, the other one, of course, is completely steamrolled on the other side. And so because, at least for now, the parties kind of go back and forth, there’s leeriness about getting rid of the filibuster.

Jared Serbu All right, this is my last attempt to cling to hope that the end is near here. But there’s another thing coming up here, which is we’re about to hit a threshold where we’re at the longest shutdown in history, right? Where do the numbers stand as of now and how does that all shake out from a historical perspective?

Mitchell Miller Right, so we are on the precipice of the longest government shutdown ever, and to break it down a little bit, there has never been a shutdown of all government, which we are in now, that has been as long as this one. But of course, many people remember more recently the 2018-2019, which was a technically a partial government shutdown, but that many consider the longest government shutdown ever. That one lasted 34 full days — so we’re on day 34 now — and went into the 35th day. And given, unfortunately, where we are right now, I think we are definitely going to surpass it this week. And then we’ll have to see later on this week whether or not some of these things that we’ve talked about, this off-ramp — possibly moving toward a continuing resolution that would, for example, go into next year — will that be something that happens along with promises that certain things will happen in the appropriations process? But I do think we are getting to the point where something is going to probably shake loose this week. Also, don’t forget that on Tuesday you have elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Many people, including Republicans, say a lot of Democrats are holding off right now because they want to wait to see what happens with these elections. They don’t want to be seen as caving right before the elections, so that’s another factor to consider this week. But I think as the week goes on, because there’s been so much pressure, and we haven’t even talked about the fact that the air traffic controllers not getting paid and all these flight delays that we’ve been seeing across the country, that is going to continue to build pressure. And don’t forget that 2018-2019 longest shutdown ever. Really the main reason that finally came to a head and ended was because there was so much concern about the flight delays and flight safety issues that were taking place then. So all of these factors, I think, coming together, there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, despite all the financial pain that this has caused. And I do think that we are getting closer and closer to having some type of breakthrough in the next week or so.

Jared Serbu Fingers crossed that you’re right. I appreciate you giving us lots of reasons for optimism.