Quite frankly, so am I. Usually, they start melting like jello, as there are a lot of squishy Republicans in Congress. There are always those who want to score points with the news media. Those who want to “reach across the aisle” and give up everything to Democrats in exchange for a pittance. Of course, we’re only in day two, so, we’ll see if this lasts
House Republicans showing an unusually united front
One by one, the rank-and-file House Republicans exited their closed-door huddle Saturday morning and stuck to the same script: Their position was strong, and the Senate minority leader was to blame for the government shutdown.
“This is a Chuck Schumer shutdown, case closed,†Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), a staunch conservative on immigration issues, told reporters.
A few minutes later, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who supports the effort to reach a bipartisan plan to benefit young undocumented immigrants, blamed Schumer (D-N.Y.) for trying to force the issue into federal budget talks when the immigration deadline was six weeks away.
“This particular shutdown, by Schumer, is trying to move the timeline up, trying to cram it,†Issa said.
Obviously, this article is about House Republicans staying strong, but, so far, Senate Republicans seem to be staying strong, as well.
In other eras, this would be normal behavior — members of the same party reading from the same talking points.
This is not normal behavior for House Republicans. They have fought bitterly among themselves ever since winning the majority in 2010, perhaps never more so than in the fall of 2013. That’s when a small but influential faction of conservatives caused the last federal government shutdown, over a bid to force then-President Obama to zero out funding for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
First, this behavior hasn’t been normal since the beginning of this century. There have been plenty of the squishes, and even leadership weenies, who cause a united front to collapse. Give it to Democrats, they stay strong and show that united front almost always.
Just because one side gets most of the blame when agencies go into partial shutdown and furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers is no guarantee that side will pay a political price in the next set of elections. House Republicans, after all, retained their majority after they drove the unpopular 1996 shutdown and increased their majority in 2014.
Perhaps Republicans realize that, regardless of whether they get the bulk of the blame or not, the Democrats position on shutting down the federal government, such as it is, in order to give illegal aliens some sort of legal status over the needs of the American citizens will not play well come the mid-terms. You can bet this will be used in campaign ads, and you can be certain that President Trump will broadcast this loudly and often. Like him or loathe him, Trump has given the GOP a backbone with his bombastic manner. Democrats have long had that bombast, the GOP never seemed to match it. Now they do.
This is what Democrats are about
Dems vow to block latest GOP plan to end shutdown
A Senate showdown vote on a Republican plan for ending the federal shutdown is on track to occur by early Monday. Democrats say they have the votes to block it.
It will be interesting to see if more Democrats, those who could be in vulnerable positions, being Senators from states Trump won, will cross over to vote “yea”, as a few did the other day. This shutdown is all on Democrats, who put illegal aliens over American citizens.
