Filibuster
Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, the Senate of the United States will determine whether to sign onto a House of Representatives mandated budget resolution, or not. The Republican House majority passed the resolution they wanted, without any Democratic input or support, sent it to the Senate, and left town for two weeks. If the resolution isn’t passed, the federal government will partially shut down.
But the Republicans in the Senate have a problem. While they have a majority (technically three votes, plus a tiebreaking Vice President if needed), they don’t have the sixty votes needed to end a filibuster. So it takes all fifty-three Republicans plus seven Democrats to actually get the budget resolution to a final majority vote. (Technically it’s eight Democrats. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, is likely to vote against the resolution).
But Republicans aren’t giving an inch to the Democrats. There’s no negotiations, no political give and take. The Senate Republicans are jamming the House Republican’s bill down the Democrat’s throat, just like the House jammed it down the Senate’s throat.. So Democrats have a choice. They can make a symbolic gesture: give enough votes to get past the filibuster, then vote against the actual resolution. That’s one of those, “I was for it before I was against it, votes”. And that will allow the government to stay open, on totally Republican terms.
Price We Paid
That will make the Democrats look complicit, weak and helpless. And it should. The MAGA-Republicans have been shutting down the Government already. Ask the thousands of government employees fired by the DOGE kids and Elon Musk. Democrats have screamed, cursed, and cried; but done little to actually stop the Executive takeover of Congressional power.
Or the Democrats could hold, and not give Republicans the votes they need to pass the House resolution. And since the House is intentionally absent – then the government will partially shut down Friday at midnight.
The media is split. Will the “fault” for the shutdown fall on the Republicans, with majorities in both the House and Senate and control of the White House, or will it fall on minority Senate Democrats who didn’t provide the seven votes. The media might be split, but it seems pretty clear to me. Republicans haven’t even asked a Democrat’s opinion about the resolution. This isn’t give-and-take politics, this is brinksmanship: vote for the resolution or take the blame.
Senate Democrats: don’t fall for it. It’s a Republican government, with a Republican majority. If they choose not to allow for Democratic input, then it’s all on them. Democrats have “one job”: to stand up to the unconstitutional actions of the Republican President and his unelected friends. And that one job requires them to exercise the only control they have left, the vote to maintain the filibuster in the Senate.
This is the whole reason Democrats didn’t pass the Voting Rights Act, or the Abortion Rights Act, or all of the other reforms when the Democrats controlled the Senate, House, and Presidency just three years ago. We didn’t because if Senate Democrats “broke” the filibuster, then Republicans would too. That’s what we gave up for this one remaining power.
Political Calculus
“Talking Heads” say voters in 2026 will blame someone for closing the government. Surely, the biggest talking head of all, Donald Trump, will lay the blame on Democrats. But in the end, it’s all in his hands (and Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Thune). If they are interested in keeping the government open, they can negotiate with Senate Democrats. If they’re not, then they own the shutdown, just like they owned all of the other ones.
So here’s my calculus. The government shuts down, and Trump screams bloody murder, and the social security checks get slowed up and Federal money stops going to the states. In the end, as Harry Truman said, “the buck stops here”, right at the President’s desk. So let’s see if Trump, the supposed author (it was ghost-written) of the “Art of the Deal”, can actually make a deal. He can deal with the Senate Democrats, or he can deal with being the President who failed the American people.
It’s on him. And it’s on the Senate Democrats to hold firm. We Americans, have sacrificed a lot for the “right” to do so.
Make it worth it.
