Yonkers Indivisible CD-16 Director Eileen O’Connor
Below is a letter from Indivisible Co-Founder Ezra Levin to Indivisible Westchester -Yonkers member Eileen O’Connor, and posted on Facebook
From Indivisible: Eileen,
This is a big week full of predictable drama. Part of Indivisible’s role is to demystify complex congressional events, so I’m going to try to do that as succinctly as possible in this intro before we get to this week’s action items. Let’s see if I can cover the main parts in three short bullets:
If Congress doesn’t act by Friday, we go into a government shutdown.
Republicans are pushing their own bill forward without negotiating with Dems, hoping that Dems will simply cave.
Democrats have leverage. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to pass a funding bill — that means at least 7 Dem votes. In the House, the Republicans are such a clown show that they might not be able to get every Republican onboard, in which case Dem votes would be needed there as well.
That much is known. But both sides are posturing, so it can be hard to tell who’s bluffing and who’s representing their real “best and final offer.” Dems are saying no votes unless the bill includes safeguards against Musk’s illegal and unconstitutional behavior. Republicans are rejecting that, have kicked Dems out of the negotiations, and are aiming to jam their own bill through the House tomorrow.
Here are the two main questions we have:
FIRST: Will Republicans force a shutdown? Republicans aren’t acting like they want a deal. They’ve put out a funding bill with MAGA treats included. This isn’t a “clean” funding bill — it makes MAGA-friendly adjustments to existing funding levels (e.g. more money for ICE) and gives the administration more discretion over spending, rather than simply continuing the current funding status quo.
Republicans are implicitly threatening congressional Dems: give in to our funding demands, or we will blame you for shutting down the government.
Maybe this is bluster. Maybe Republicans in the House won’t be able to muster votes for this bill. Or maybe they’ll find Democratic resistance in the Senate, and then they’ll drop their additional demands. We don’t know.
A lot depends on how Dems respond. Which brings us to the next big question…
SECOND: How much will Dems give in to avoid a shutdown? Congressional Dems are currently opposing a “blank check” without safeguards against Musk. There are four potential ways this goes:
No concessions: Dems flat out refuse to give any votes without safeguards against Musk. If a shutdown happens, they blame Republicans and Musk. This is the current public position of many congressional Dems, including those in the negotiations and in leadership.
Fall-back position: If Republicans refuse to rein in Musk, Dems agree to a short-term funding bill of a couple weeks. The main advantage of this is Dems don’t agree to a blank check, and they force Republicans to use up additional time fighting for short-term funding rather than doing additional damage.
Cave: Dems drop the demand for safeguards against Musk and agree to a full-year clean funding bill. This would require Republicans amending their current proposal. But it would still give a blank check to Trump and Musk, and it would relinquish the only real leverage congressional Dems have this year.
Unconditional Surrender: Dems drop any demands and agree to the GOP funding bill with MAGA goodies. If House Republicans succeed in passing their funding bill tomorrow, it only takes 7 Senate Dems to pass it through the Senate. It’s possible they just surrender for fear of being blamed for a shutdown.
What we’re communicating to Congress right now:
On last Thursday’s “What’s the Plan” chat with me and Leah, I previewed for folks a survey on this question on what Democrats should do. We had 3 options:
Should they press for protections against Musk, even if that would entail a government shutdown?
Should they accept a short-term funding bill to maintain leverage?
Or should they accept a long-term clean funding bill?
I didn’t even ask about the unconditional surrender option, because my guess was that no active Indivisible member would favor that approach. As of this morning, here are the results of that survey:
Accept a long-term clean funding bill: 3.9%
Push for a short-term funding bill to maintain leverage: 29%
Demand protections against Musk even if it entails a shutdown: 67%
Essentially, what you’re telling us is: You want Dems to play hardball. We’re passing that message on to congressional Democrats. But we need your help to do it, which brings us to this week’s action items.
– Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible
