Jeb Bladine: Complicated federal shutdown has 'rules of 60'
A federal government shutdown this week comes complete with public confusion, heated rhetoric, misleading claims, maximum partisanship, political demonization and all the related anxieties.
Heading into the first weekend, let’s review two important “rules of 60” in the turbulent process.
First is “cloture” — the requirement to obtain 60 votes to end U.S. Senate debate on budget appropriations bills such as the competing “continuing resolutions” being proposed by Democrats and Republicans. Technically, neither CR has received a vote on its merits because every preliminary ballot on cloture failed to receive 60 votes.
As backdrop, the Senate has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two Independents.
The Republican CR proposal seeks to extend federal agency funding until Nov. 21 with no changes from previous congressional actions on “budget reconciliation” bills. That proposal won a majority 55-45 vote on cloture, but failed to receive the required 60 votes. Two Democrats and one Independent senator voted Yes, and one Republican senator voted No.
The Democrat CR proposal seeks to extend federal funding through Oct. 31, and includes substantial policy changes that would either preserve or restore various funding initiatives related to national health care benefits. All those policies were approved by a Republican majority under previous reconciliation bills that did not require 60 votes for cloture.
Thus, the CR process allows Democrats a chance to overturn or alter those GOP policies under the threat of a government shutdown. It is politically opportunistic, but Democrats hope the American public will rally to their cause that protecting health care benefits is more important in the long run than the consequences of a short-term government shutdown.
That brings us to “rule of 60” No. 2:
News reports estimate that 750,000 federal employees will be placed on furloughs, without pay, during the shutdown. By law, those employees are entitled to receive all that back pay when funding appropriations continue.
The Trump Administration is threatening to enact permanent layoffs for tens of thousands of employees during the shutdown. By law, that requires 60-day notice to employees and many procedural requirements, with pay guaranteed up to the effective date of any such “Reduction in Force” action. Those GOP threats are political posturing, because the same RIF actions could be launched with or without a government shutdown.
The longest-ever federal government shutdowns lasted 35 days during President Trump’s first term, 21 days in 1995 under Bill Clinton, and 16 days in 2013 under Barack Obama. We can hope that most federal employees have sufficient personal resources to withstand that much paycheck delay, and that this shutdown does not continue into record-breaking timelines.
As the shutdown continues, however, both sides hope the American public will blame the other for consequences of the shutdown. The GOP seems almost to accept prospects for severe economic damages if it increases their odds to retain congressional majorities in 2026-27; the Democrats believe health care and health insurance cost pressures are the key to their return to political power.
Business as usual in Washington, D.C.? We’ll see.
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
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