Senator Chuck Schumer fields questions from reporters on November 5. Photo / Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer did things differently this time.
The New York Democrat infuriated much of his party in March when he voted with Republicans to prevent a United States Government shutdown, and he faced questions about whether he would step down as leader as a result.
As another Government funding deadline approached in September, Schumer led his party in blocking a Republican funding Bill, triggering the longest shutdown in US history.
When a handful of Democrats broke with their party this week and struck a deal to reopen the Government, Schumer voted against it.
Despite that, some Democrats are still furious with him.
They argue he is not doing enough to stand up to President Donald Trump and that the time has come for their party to elect younger, more aggressive leaders.
“If you’ve been in elective office for over 20 years, it’s fine to continue to serve,” Representative Ro Khanna (D-California) said.
“We need the wisdom. But you probably shouldn’t be the face of the Democratic Party at a time where the Democratic people are desperate for change.”
Khanna and at least five other House Democrats from the Congressional Progressive Caucus have called for Schumer to step down as minority leader, as did the progressive group MoveOn and a collection of activists.
They accuse Schumer of failing to prevent Senator Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, and seven Democrats from voting to reopen the Government without securing the party’s top priority: extending Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
If those subsidies are not renewed, Democrats warn, healthcare premiums will rise for millions of Americans.
Some Senate Democrats say they understand the frustration with Schumer, even if it overestimates how much control he has over senators.
“It’s not as though he has command and control and he can say, ‘This is what we’re doing today,’” Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) said. “Senators don’t appreciate that.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and King, who began discussing how to resolve the shutdown with Republicans the night it began, briefed Schumer regularly about their conversations. Schumer encouraged the talks.
Schumer never endorsed the agreement that King, Shaheen and a handful of other Democrats reached with Republicans and made clear to them that he would vote against it, according to a Democrat familiar with the negotiations and another briefed on caucus conversations.
He encouraged Democrats who were considering voting for the deal to hold out longer, according to two Democrats familiar with the negotiations.
But Senators Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Shaheen – both of whom voted for the agreement – said Schumer never tried to dissuade them from backing it.
“I told him well before time what I was going to do so there was no surprising element involved in it,” Durbin told reporters. “He was a gentleman about it.”
King, Shaheen, and other Democrats who voted for the Bill – which passed the Senate on Tuesday – argued that Republicans would not agree to extend the ACA subsidies as long as the Government remained shut down.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) promised Democrats a vote next month on a Bill to extend the subsidies as part of the deal to reopen the Government, which Shaheen said offered Democrats their best shot at securing an extension.
If Republicans refuse to extend the subsidies, “then come next election, in the Midterms, the American people are going to hold them accountable”, Shaheen told reporters.
But many Democratic voters wanted the party to keep fighting. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted from October 31 to November 3 found 71% of Democrats wanted the party to hold out for changes to healthcare funding before agreeing to end the shutdown.
No Democratic Senators have called for Schumer to step down or criticised him publicly. But some of them were frustrated with what they viewed as Schumer’s lack of a strategy, according to three people familiar with discussions in the caucus.
Throughout the shutdown, Schumer insisted that public pressure would force Trump and Republicans to negotiate with Democrats. That never happened, even though polls showed Republicans shouldered more blame for the shutdown than Democrats.
Hints of that frustration seeped out publicly after King, Shaheen, Durbin and five other Democrats – Tim Kaine (Virginia), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Jacky Rosen (Nevada), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada) – agreed to support a deal to reopen the Government.
“We need to meet the moment, and we’re not doing that,” Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) told reporters.
Asked on MSNBC whether he supported Schumer remaining Democratic leader, Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) did not answer directly.
“When I hear folks say things like that, I understand their frustration,” Kelly said. “But I also hope they understand that we all need to be on the same team here.”
Jacob Peters, a Kelly spokesman, said in a statement afterward that Kelly was not “advocating for changes to Democratic leadership in the Senate”.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said Schumer’s job would be tough for any leader, but that Democrats could not stand up to Trump effectively if they did not remain united.
“Senator Schumer didn’t want this to be the outcome and pressed hard for it not to end like this,” Murphy told reporters. “He didn’t succeed.”
Asked for comment, a Schumer spokesperson pointed to his remarks on the Senate floor.
“This healthcare crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home that I cannot in good faith support this CR,” Schumer said on Monday, referring to the Bill, known as a continuing resolution.
Democrats outside the Senate have been harsh in their criticism and have not hesitated to call on Schumer to step down.
David Hogg, a former Democratic National Committee vice-chair, said his group, Leaders We Deserve, will not endorse any Senate candidate who does not call for Schumer to step aside. Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, called for any Democratic senator who does not ask Schumer to step aside to face a primary challenge.
“To me what it looks like is that he doesn’t have his caucus in control - and that is your number one job in that role,” Hogg said.
Schumer is not alone in being the target of Democratic vitriol.
Democrats have also vented frustration at the Democratic senators who voted for the Bill.
More House Democrats criticised those senators than those who went after Schumer on a caucus call on Tuesday, according to four people familiar with the matter.
“These guys have no idea how much they are hurting their own constituents,” Representative Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said in an interview, referring to the Democrats who voted for the Bill.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) – who declined to defend Schumer in March – told reporters on Tuesday that he thought Schumer was an effective leader. But he was more critical of Democratic senators who supported the Bill.
“They’re going to have to explain themselves to their constituents,” Jeffries said.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) said party leaders in the Senate do not have as much control over their caucuses as they do in the House.
Schumer’s task was to hold Senate Democrats together as long as he could, including “members who were voting for shutdowns they did not want to vote for and were holding just out of loyalty to the caucus and to help Chuck,” Whitehouse said.
Whitehouse said Democrats’ challenge now is to redirect their anger at each other back towards Trump and Republicans as Democrats press them to agree to extend the subsidies in the coming weeks.
“If we keep a lot of pressure on this, then I think the odds go up,” Whitehouse said. “If we’re spending the intervening weeks quarrelling with each other and having recriminations and fratricide, then we’re not going to do anywhere near as well.”
- Paul Kane, Dylan Wells, Riley Beggin, Amy B. Wang, Matthew Choi and Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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