Federal Union’s Demand to End Shutdown Fails to Sway Democrats

Politics|Federal Union’s Demand to End Shutdown Fails to Sway Democrats

Senate Democrats refused on Tuesday to budge in the government shutdown fight despite a call from the largest federal workers’ union to stop the “gamesmanship” and reopen the government, even as Republicans tried to leverage the plea to persuade them to relent.

The day after the American Federation of Government Employees said it was “long past time” to end the government closure, which is entering its fourth week, all but three Democratic-aligned senators voted against taking up a Republican temporary spending bill, again blocking it from moving forward.

Republicans pounced on the statement from Everett Kelley, the president of the union, imploring senators to end a shutdown that has forced 730,000 federal employees to work without pay and left another 670,000 furloughed without pay.

“That’s from the union that has for years and years and years supported Democrat candidates across the board,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican. “They’re saying, ‘Do what Republicans have been saying from the beginning:pass a clean continuing resolution.’ ”

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, added that the union is “about as reliable of a Democrat constituency as you can possibly have.”

“And yet that’s the conclusion they came to,” Mr. Thune said.

In his statement, Mr. Kelley wrote that, “Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” adding: “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”

The statement was a public shift by Mr. Kelley, who at the outset of the shutdown had called on Republicans to negotiate with Democrats who were insisting that any spending extension also extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, warning that if they were to lapse, the cost of health care would shoot up for millions of Americans.

Democrats said there was no need to drop that demand. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said he had spoken with Mr. Kelley in recent days and told him, “We can do both.”

“And we need to do both,” Mr. Schumer said. “Both have federal workers get paid in every way and negotiate a way to resolve the Americans’ pain in the health care crisis.”

Democrats voted last week to block a G.O.P. bill that would have paid federal employees who have worked without pay over the past few weeks, arguing that the legislation gave too much power to President Trump to pick and choose who gets paid during the shutdown. Republicans turned around and voted against two Democratic attempts to pay some federal workers.

On Tuesday, Democrats expressed sympathy for the plight of furloughed government employees but said swallowing a so-called “clean” funding extension — one with no policy additions, including relief for health care costs — was a nonstarter.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who votes with Democrats, said voting for such a measure would equate to a vote to allow millions of “Americans to lose their health insurance.”

Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, a state that is home to tens of thousands of federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay, said a stopgap spending bill “that takes health care away” from millions of Americans is far from “clean.”

But Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, said the change of public stance from the federal workers’ union should be a sign to Democrats that they are on the wrong side of the issue.

“They know who is working for the American people and who is not, who is causing and inflicting pain on the American people,” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “The contrast has never been more clear.”