After 40 days of political theater and government paralysis, the Senate finally managed to break through the gridlock late Sunday night. It took eight Democrats jumping ship and voting with Republicans to make it happen, and judging by the meltdown from the left this morning, you’d think the world just ended.
The vote to invoke cloture on the House-passed continuing resolution, essentially the step needed to advance the funding bill, passed 60 to 40, but not without drama. It was the 15th attempt, because apparently Washington needs to prove over and over that it can’t do anything efficiently. Senator John Cornyn showed up just before 11 p.m. to cast the final, decisive vote, and the chamber erupted in the kind of weary applause that only comes from people who’ve been pretending to work all weekend.
Republicans now plan to attach three full-year appropriations bills, covering actual priorities like defense, veterans, and agriculture, so this isn’t just another “kick the can down the road” stunt. It’s about getting some long-term stability instead of these short-term budget gimmicks that both parties claim to hate but keep voting for anyway.
The real story, though, is what happened to Chuck Schumer. He lost, and he didn’t take it gracefully. He stormed to the microphone, declared “I must vote no!” and went off on a bizarre tangent about President Trump’s ballroom and the “healthcare crisis” supposedly made worse by Obamacare. Yes, you read that right, he’s blaming Obamacare for the healthcare mess but still calling it a reason to oppose Republicans. Only in Washington.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1987706381718413482
Schumer’s tantrum was pure theater, but his party’s crack-up is very real. The eight Democrats who voted with Republicans, Fetterman, Cortez Masto, Shaheen, Hassan, Rosen, Kaine, Durbin, and independent Angus King, are now public enemy number one among the progressive base. These are the same senators who’ve been quietly trying to broker bipartisan solutions for weeks, only to get shredded online by activists who think compromise is a dirty word.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s influence still looms over all of this. Republicans, for once, held their ground and refused to fold to the media’s shutdown hysteria. And sure enough, it worked. Democrats blinked first.
By Wednesday, the House is expected to take up the Senate’s package, and Washington might finally get back to pretending it knows how to govern. But make no mistake, Schumer’s credibility took a serious hit here. His caucus fractured under pressure, and for all his shouting about resistance and unity, the only thing his side managed to resist was common sense.
Forty days of chaos just to end up right where they could have been in week one. That’s Washington for you, loud speeches, wasted time, and in the end, a handful of Democrats saving their party from itself.
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