David Dayen explains “The Most Frustrating Thing About the Shutdown Cave” at The American Prospect:
My colleague Bob Kuttner has ably explained the particulars and the political dynamics of the sudden surrender on the government shutdown from eight Senate Democrats (with Chuck Schumer’s tacit support), what I’m calling the Cave Caucus. Senators dissatisfied with this deal are going to deny unanimous consent to draw out the conclusion, in part to let the situation sink in for the House, where the reaction has been sharply negative. But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) only needs his own party members to get the bill passed, and he has delivered tough votes throughout the year. I don’t think House Republicans will rescue the Cave Caucus.
I share a lot of the frustrations expressed all over social media. But the biggest one for me comes on page 12 of the continuing resolution that advanced in the Senate last night. There, the drafters demonstrated that they have every ability to constrain Donald Trump and OMB director Russ Vought’s desires and stop the consolidation of executive power. But they only did it in one area, to grab one necessary vote for passage, not because they care about Congress’s relevance as an institution. That this Senate knows how to restore the power imbalance in Washington and chose not to is almost worse than completely ignoring it.
On the details, I do agree that the existing dynamics, particularly with air travel chaos and the Trump administration losing ruling after ruling on food assistance (including one just last night), were actually pushing Senate Republicans to bow to their president and eliminate the Senate filibuster, or at least create some semantic carve-out for government spending that would end the filibuster in all but name. The Cave Caucus was likely mindful that their power to dictate events is tied to the rule by minority in the Senate, and they stepped in front of that process like human shields.
I also agree that for Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Dick Durbin (D-IL)—the two Cave Caucus members who are retiring next year—the real goal was to preserve their three-bill “minibus” appropriations package, which is objectively better than the usual work product and preserves some funding Trump wanted out. It in no way makes up for the cave, but it speaks to how parochial interests and turf wars in Congress often play an outsized role in outcomes. Shaheen and Durbin weren’t thinking about the national Democratic position of giving up on health care improvements right after a big electoral victory and Republican chaos; they wanted their little bill to pass.
But I have been arguing consistently throughout the shutdown that Democrats were running into problems by saying one thing in public and another in private. The public argument of the shutdown was about Affordable Care Act subsidies, and Democrats didn’t have much of a policy plan for what to do if Republicans just said no. Politically, they reset the conversation to friendly turf; getting Republicans to express their bonkers health care ideas out loud is where Democrats want to be. But it was easy to see where this impasse would lead. In fact, on October 6 I wrote that the endgame would look something like Republicans offering an “assurance” of negotiations or a vote as long as short-term funding passes, and Democrats deciding that was a real rather than a dubious offer. Of course, that’s what happened.
But there was a behind-the-scenes factor in the shutdown too, namely, that Trump was making a mockery of the appropriations process by withholding funds and dismantling agencies and rescinding programs. The Democratic counteroffer had provisions for a “No Kings” budget, to stop the withholding and rescinding of funds. But because that was largely in private, without any momentum behind it politically, that was destined to flounder.
Yet Senate Democrats needed Tim Kaine’s vote, and Kaine represents a large number of federal workers in Virginia. So after the rest of the Democratic caucus balked on a straightforward cave, the Cave Caucus decided to reverse Trump’s firings of federal workers, in a way that reveals their options to use the power of the purse.
