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The President and other Republicans have been casting blame on the Democrats for being responsible for the current government shutdown.

If Republicans had a majority in the House and the Senate at the start of the shutdown, and also have control over the executive branch, what actions by the Democrats could give the Republicans a logical reason to place blame on them?

I’m sure there is something that I am missing (certain vote percentages, loopholes, who knows).

Ian Kemp
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Trent the Gent
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    It's not the first time a funding gap has occurred when the president, the senate majority, and house majority, are of all of the same political party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_funding_gaps – Golden Cuy Jan 04 '19 at 22:50
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    Flagged as this question requires primarily speculation – Aporter Jan 05 '19 at 23:09
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    @Aporter I don’t think it requires speculation at all. The question boils down to what are the mechanics/nuances of the US governmental system that allow a party with majority in Congress and control of the executive branch to logically be able to blame the opposing party. Who is actually to blame is somewhat irrelevant. Alexander was able to answer that in their response. – Trent the Gent Jan 06 '19 at 00:15
  • Placing 'Blame' is largely a speculative concept – Aporter Jan 06 '19 at 01:21
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    @TrenttheGent If you consider Alexander's answer to answer your question, please [edit] the question so that it matches what he says. Because he doesn't actually address at all what you ask: what the Republicans's logic is that leads to their conclusion that the Democrats are to blame. – curiousdannii Jan 06 '19 at 02:11
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    Re blame and fault: Opponents of the wall regard steadfast opposition as less of a fault than it would it is both a credit and a duty -- i.e. something they're proud to oppose. For them it would be like asking *"whose fault is it that the US fails to officially re-institute slavery?" – agc Jan 06 '19 at 04:57
  • The Republicans don’t have a majority in the House, since 3 January this year, which was before this question was asked. – Mike Scott Jan 06 '19 at 17:19
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    @Mike Scott at the start of the shutdown, the Rebublicans did have a majority in the House. – Trent the Gent Jan 06 '19 at 19:00
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    I made the title less opinionated. That should help avoid future closure attempts – Machavity Jan 07 '19 at 13:19
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    @AndrewGrimm - Wonderful link. It is however instructive that the first time employees were actually furloughed over it was under Carter (fresh off the court ruling that forced employee furloughs), it was only for one day, and that never happened again under unified control until Trump (who has now done with it employee furloughs twice). – T.E.D. Jan 07 '19 at 21:59
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    @Machavity While the title is less-opinionated, I think you may have created more disparity between the title and the question body. – Batman Jan 07 '19 at 22:05
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    @Aporter: Placing blame can be speculative. Referencing actual arguments that have been made (whether correct or not) is not. – Flater Jan 08 '19 at 11:57

6 Answers6

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Rather than trying to address the claim of who is to blame, I will focus on the part of the question asking for the spefic actions that were taken and give you timeline of events to let you decide for yourself who deserves how much of the blame.

19th December, 2018:

Senate passes without any dissent by voice vote a bi-partisan short-term spending bill without funding for Trump's wall. That bill is expected to pass the House and be signed by the President. [1]

Fox and Friends, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter publicly criticize Trump for "folding" on the wall. [2]

20th December, 2018:

The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came up from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security.

-- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R)

Instead of voting on the bill the Senate passed, the House with Paul Ryan (R) as Speaker passes a different spending bill with $5 billion in border wall funding. This bill is not expected to pass the Senate, and ultimately did fail in the Senate, where 60 votes were needed and Republicans only had 51 seats. [3] [4]

3rd January, 2019:

The new House of Representatives with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker (D) passes a bill mirroring the one that passed the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) blocks the bill in the Senate, saying he will not bring a bill to vote without the president's approval. [5]

Batman
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    -1 because the question was "How could this be the Democrats' fault", and all this answer does is reiterate why it's Republicans' fault. – Wes Sayeed Jan 05 '19 at 05:04
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    @WesSayeed I didn't say that. It may well be the logical conclusion, but that's just the way it is sometimes. Sometimes the premise of the question is wrong, or mostly wrong as I would say in this case. – Batman Jan 05 '19 at 05:05
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    what does "a bill mirroring the one that passed the Senate" mean - is it identical or an new one? – Sascha Jan 05 '19 at 11:56
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    @Sascha It's technically a new one because the previous bill died when the previous Congress ended. My understanding is it is virtually identical though. – Batman Jan 05 '19 at 19:27
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    (Dec 19) McConnell proposed amendment SA4163 (to HR695 ) to extend government funding through Feb 8, 2019. For some reason, this is being report as "passing 100-0" when in fact the margin is not known because this was a voice vote (see linked). See also C-Span coverage ~11:06PM (Dec 19) for a speech by senator Moran about why he voted no: https://www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=senate&date=2018-12-19 – BurnsBA Jan 07 '19 at 15:37
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    Everyone: This answer is being discussed on Meta. If you do not feel it is a fair attempt at answering the question, please make your argument there. Not here. Comments are not a great place to discuss the nature of answers on Stack Exchange sites. – yannis Jan 07 '19 at 15:41
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    @BurnsBA - Likely someone misinterpreted "by acclamation" as "unanimously" and then got repeated by everyone else. The difference isn't huge, but if you're going to throw exact numbers around I agree it becomes important to keep. – T.E.D. Jan 07 '19 at 22:09
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    @WesSayeed He literally listed just facts. There's no opinions here. What you logically conclude based on these facts is up to you. – Katie Jan 16 '19 at 00:30
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    @KatieS; Which again... Not what the OP asked. – Wes Sayeed Jan 16 '19 at 00:31
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    @WesSayeed Bending facts to try to fit a narrative isn't how politics SE is meant to be used, but I do see your point. – Katie Jan 16 '19 at 22:48
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I’m sure there is something that I am missing (certain vote percentages, loopholes, who knows), but to me the logic seems that if Republicans had the ability to pass the funding measure and then didn’t, wouldn’t the shutdown be the Republicans fault?

I think there are a couple things: first, the new Democratic majority; and second, the filibuster/cloture process in the Senate.

Yesterday (3 Jan.) was the first day of the 116th Congress. As of yesterday, the Democrats have a majority in the House (235 to 199, one disputed seat) and the Republicans have a majority in the Senate (53 to 47). At this point and going forward, both parties bear responsibility for passing or failing to pass spending bills.

However, before yesterday, the Republicans had a 236 to 196 majority in the House (three vacant seats) and a 51 to 49 majority in the Senate. In December, the (Republican) House passed a spending bill with funding for the president's proposed border wall. The Senate unanimously passed an alternative short-term spending measure without border wall funding, which the president then threatened to veto. Following that, the Senate Majority Leader stated that he would not support (or presumably schedule a vote for) any bill that the president threatened to veto.

Also, almost all bills in the Senate require 60 senators to invoke "cloture" in order to end debate and vote. Bills that fail to receive cloture are "filibustered," and given that Senate Republicans had an extremely slim majority in the last Congress, invoking cloture against a united Democratic conference was quite tough. Even in the new Congress, invoking cloture will be tricky for polarizing legislation (e.g. anything dealing with "the wall"), albeit marginally easier for the Republicans than in the last Congress.

In my opinion, anyone who assigns blame or responsibility for the shutdown to one party exclusively is trying to spin the facts to fit a partisan or ideological narrative. How you assign blame depends on your personal beliefs, what you think about the majorities in Congress and what you think about the filibuster.

Andrew
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    "Senate Majority Leader would not support" is misleading. He has stated emphatically he will not allow any bill to be presented to the Senate without Presidential approval. Regarding responsibility for the shutdown, Trump has previously declared he would accept ("Proudly") the responsibility, – BobE Jan 05 '19 at 04:34
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    A fair minded answer. I would assert that Democrats in the Senate that would filibuster any bill that includes wall funding joining forces with a Democrat House that passes bills that do not include any funding against the President's wishes and veto power, makes it clear that a particular party, the Democrats, are clearly not interested in compromising to keep government running. – enorl76 Jan 05 '19 at 05:19
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    @BobE Trump accepts the responsibility... and, as such, has brought the Republicans together. They have presented funding bills - and have been sitting at the table waiting for Democrats to start an honest attempt at compromise. The fact that the Democrats haven't is the basic premise of "The balls in their court and, as such, it's their fault" - it was his job to bring Republicans together... he did that (against Pelosi's promise he couldn't) and now it's their ball and their responsibility. – WernerCD Jan 05 '19 at 19:53
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    enorl76, why do only the President's wishes matter? The entire Senate already approved spending withoutbthe additional wall funding. Brought Republicans together by havimg the Senate and House pass different bills? – Brooks Nelson Jan 05 '19 at 23:21
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    @enorl76 to crib your response... I would assert that Republican leadership in the Senate that would block any bill that does not includes wall funding even being debated joining forces with a Republican President willing to veto such bills even after the initial bill passes the Senate 100 to 0 and despite them opetating in seperate government branches, makes it clear that a particular party, the Republicans, are clearly not interested in compromising to keep government running – Jontia Jan 06 '19 at 10:37
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    Republicans attempted to pass a budget with border wall funding, and Democrats in the Senate said they will filibuster. Democrats take over, and passed a bill without border wall funding. It can pass the Senate, only because Democrats wont filibuster because there's no border wall funding, It will get vetoed by Trump. This is the hill Trump will stake his claim on. Democrats preventing border wall funding by filibustering in the Senate of a bill with funding, Or Democrats passing bills in the House without funding leave you in the same state. Democrats talk about compromising, yet will not. – enorl76 Jan 07 '19 at 22:38
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    @enorl76 Since the president has declared he won't sign any bill without funding the wall then there is no way it can be claimed that he is compromising either. Since the democrat's bill includes 1.something billion for border security they can at least claim to be trying to find a solution that achieves the stated goals of secure borders and running the government. – Craig Jan 08 '19 at 01:33
  • @enorl76 - That's a really good summation. Everyone's being a jerk but the ball's in the Demo's court, so it's 'their' fault atm. (it doesn't help that someone is being a super jerk for offering an ultimatum - the same person who is supposed to be our 'check and balance', not just checking their balance.) – Mazura Jan 08 '19 at 02:09
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This isn't really that difficult: It's a typical standoff in which neither side wants to budge. Democrats could vote for the wall, but haven't. So, sure, it can be considered at least partially their fault. That's not to say Trump isn't to blame, either. But, if ending the shutdown were enough of a priority, then Democrats could simply vote for the money for the wall, and be done with it. If it's not, the standoff will continue.

mallen
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    The same logic says "the Republicans could accept no wall funding and be done with it". – Ethan Bolker Jan 05 '19 at 14:26
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    @EthanBolker : True, but the question asked about the arguments the Republicans are using. – vsz Jan 05 '19 at 14:46
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    Exactly. Both sides want to blame the other for whatever bad thing is happening. Both sides are "to blame" in the sense that they could end the shutdown by caving in to the other side's demands. – David Richerby Jan 07 '19 at 13:30
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    Schumer in the past, has talked about getting a border wall built. Yet now insists on no funding for a wall because Trump wants it. Trump wants the wall because its a campaign pledge, and he'll run next cycle on how Democrats filibustered wall funding in the Senate, and wouldn't pass bills in the House to get it done. Democrats will lose this one, because border wall is border security and Democrats appear to be lacking on any border security funding. – enorl76 Jan 07 '19 at 22:44
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    +1. When two sides are in a standoff, they each believe that the outcome that they are fighting for is the outcome with greater utility. It's possible that one side is right about this belief, and the other is wrong (depending on your definition of "utility"). If this is the case, then blame against the "wrong" side really is warranted by the "right" side. (Of course, in general, you have to weigh the utility of your position multiplied by the probability of it passing, purely against the utility of your opponents' position. Accounting for this, both sides can be "wrong".) – Bridgeburners Jan 08 '19 at 18:50
  • @enorl76 Except the Schumer was discussing it in the context of an immigration reform proposal, in which building the wall was a concession to the other side. Republicans backed out of that deal, and now want to have their cake and eat it too (build wall but no immigration reform). Regardless of whose fault it is, It's not reasonable to suggest that Schumer is opposing the wall out of spite for Trump. – BryKKan Jan 22 '19 at 15:58
  • @BryKKan On Saturday, Trump literally just put DACA back on the table for negotiations. If I'm not mistaken, Senate Republicans have put the original bill with immigration reform and wall funding up for a vote. Now, the Democrats have shifted their argument to open the government first, negotiations later. If Trump caves on the shutdown, his only tool against the Democrats, they will then deny any border security funding for as long as they hold the house, and DACA will still not be law. As a party, Dems should take that as a compromise, but they clearly aren't interested in compromise. – enorl76 Jan 23 '19 at 16:37
  • @enorl76 Considering that immigration reform is more than just DACA, and is a complex thing to do right, I'd be shocked if anything of that scope could be fairly worked out in a reasonable time. Unless Republicans are offering to go back to the deal they walked away from in 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Opportunity,_and_Immigration_Modernization_Act_of_2013, then they're not really giving any concessions from Schumer's POV. More to the point, that's been on the table for years and a shutdown is not the time to suddenly want to work it out. – BryKKan Jan 23 '19 at 22:24
  • @enorl76 However, I think this might be diverging off topic, or at least more appropriate for chat. The main suggestion I'm offering here is basically this: there are reasons each side may feel the other is to blame, but most examples that I've seen offered break down pretty easily on deeper analysis. I lean towards sympathizing with the Democrats here, as I blame Rubio personally for failing to resolve this 5 years ago. But at the end of the day, every single member of congress can be held responsible. It's literally their job to resolve this conflict and they are FAILING. – BryKKan Jan 23 '19 at 22:31
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Passing a spending bill in the Senate requires bi-partisan cooperation because it requires overcoming a 60-vote requirement. The President demanded that any spending bill include a line for $5 billion (about 0.13% of the total yearly spending) for a border barrier (which he colloquially called a "wall").

The Republicans were willing to include the line for this spending. The Democrats were not. By this logic, the Democrats have a partial responsibility for the bill not passing.

Clearly they are not the only ones to blame. The President's unwillingness to give up on funding of "the wall" is to blame as well. But using the cloture rules to hold up a spending bill over a 0.13% spending line is the reason (or logic) for why the President is putting the failure to pass the spending bill at the Democrats' feet.

Edit: in light of the answer to this question, this answer needs clarification.

Assuming that bills do expire when a Congress ends, the bill passed by the Republican House expired when the new Congress was sworn in. So while cloture rules were the reason why the spending bill was never passed by the outgoing Congress, it is not the reason why the new Congress, sworn-in in January of 2019, did not pass a spending bill.

In addition to having enough votes to force a filibuster in the Senate, as of January of 2019, the Democrats also have control of the House of Representatives. This gives them more power to stop any spending items that the President demanded.

grovkin
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    There is no 60 vote requirement, it is only required if there is a filibuster. Lots of laws have been passed with less than 60 votes and without filibuster. – jmoreno Jan 06 '19 at 23:10
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    @jmoreno. You are correct that 60 votes are not required for the bill to pass. But 60 votes are required for to invoke cloture (aka "end the filibuster") to allow for the bill to be actually voted on. And even if 60 senators do vote to invoke the cloture, the bill may actually pass with less than 60 votes. – grovkin Jan 07 '19 at 11:34
  • With the new House having passed a different bill, is the argument about cloture rules holding up the spending bill still valid or would the new spending bill have replaced the old one in the mean time? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jan 15 '19 at 12:35
  • @Trilarion a spending bill has to be passed both by the House of Representatives and the Senate. The outgoing House (before the current batch of Congressmen were sworn in) passed a spending bill which did contain the $5 billion wall spending line. So there was a bill that the Senate could have voted on to have a spending bill (the one passed by the outgoing House). – grovkin Jan 15 '19 at 12:54
  • @grovkin Yes I know that, but now the incoming House passed another spending bill. Does this replace the old bill now or not? Basically I ask myself if we still need to talk about the old bill? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jan 15 '19 at 13:14
  • @Trilarion, that, in itself, is an interesting question. I don't know the answer to it, but if you phrase it correctly, it would be a very good question about how the government functions. I can only venture a guess in response to this and I would rather not speculate. – grovkin Jan 16 '19 at 05:36
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If Republicans have a majority in the House and the Senate, and also have control over the executive branch, how could it be possible that the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown?

Answer: The Republicans' majority in the Senate isn't large enough.

In order to end debating a bill, 60 senators have to agree to start voting. Because the Republicans only held either 51 (just before the 2018 election) or 53 (after the 2018 election), the Democrats have enough votes to continue debating certain bills forever. This is known as 'filibusting' a bill.

As a result, the Republicans were not able to pass a bill that included the requested money for a border wall, even when they had majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Sjoerd
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    This answer doesn't seem to add anything not covered by the existing answers. – CrackpotCrocodile Jan 04 '19 at 23:03
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    @CrackpotCrocodile It's much shorter than the other ones. Listing which bills have passed doesn't answer why funding for a wall hasn't passed yet. – Sjoerd Jan 05 '19 at 00:53
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    The question isn't about the funding for the wall though, but the government shutdown. – Lebbers Jan 05 '19 at 03:16
  • The answer seems misleading as it mixes the filibuster options and the last congress when republicans controlled both houses. The filibuster option didn't prevent the Senate passing a bill when the Republican party controlled both houses. They passed a bill in the Senate 100 to 0 without wall funding. No filibuster was used. – Jontia Jan 06 '19 at 11:33
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    @Jontia They couldn't pass a bill with funding for the wall due to the Democrats filibustering such a bill. As is proved by the fact that the bill with wall money approved by the House was never up for voting in the Senate. The Republicans have a Senate majority, but they don't control the Senate. – Sjoerd Jan 06 '19 at 16:28
  • @Jontia Your comment doesn't make sense. It's not like every time a bill comes up, there's an automatic filibuster. The filibuster option is exactly that: an option that senators can choose to exercise. There was a bill that passed 100-0 without a filibuster, but it would have been vetoed, because it didn't have wall funding. A bill that does have wall funding wouldn't be vetoed, but it would be filibustered. – Acccumulation Jan 07 '19 at 19:32
  • I too prefer this answer. I don't necessarily agree with the logic, and this argument didn't work very well for Democrats when the Republicans were using the "you controlled government" argument to attack the ACA, but this is roughly the argument they are using (at least the ones using any coherent argument at all are). – T.E.D. Jan 07 '19 at 22:33
  • @Acccumulation that's not accurate.Senate rules require cloture for a bill to be voted on, and 60 Senator votes are required for cloture. The lack of cloture is the filibuster. So in a sense, yes, all bills are automatic filibuster until 60 Senators agree to vote for cloture, then the bill can be voted on. The Democrats in the Senate, when Republicans had a majority, still prevented border wall funding by not voting for cloture and putting the bill on the floor for vote. The bill would've passed, with border wall funding, given the R majority. Sen Democrats filibustered and stopped it. – enorl76 Jan 07 '19 at 22:54
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    @T.E.D.Democrats had supermajority in House and 56 Senators. Republicans couldn't stop ACA because Reid (D) invoked the "nuclear option" to eliminate cloture rules of 60 votes, and put the ACA bill on the floor of the Senate, which passed because of the D majority in the Senate. Democrats controlled the Senate and changed the cloture rules for the ACA. So why do Republicans blame Democrats just before and now? Because R's DIDNT invoke "nuclear option" and pass the bill, even though there's precedent. R's in Senate want it to pass without rule hijinx but cant overcome the D's filibuster. – enorl76 Jan 07 '19 at 23:01
  • @enorl76 - Large portions of that are inaccurate. The Dems actually had 60 votes in the Senate (a cloture supermajority) during the Obama era for a 6 month window at the end of 2009 between the seating of Franken (after the Republicans lost their court case against the election) and their Dem loss in the Mass special election. The Senate in 2008-2010. ... – T.E.D. Jan 08 '19 at 00:56
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    ...The version of the ACA that was signed into law was passed with 60 votes during that brief window. When they lost the 40th seat, this meant the only way to get it passed was for the House to pass something substantially similar, enough so that the differences could be ironed out in the normal "reconciliation" process, which per Senate rules only required a simple majority vote. All that "nuclear option" talk is nonsense. The filibuster rules were not touched. – T.E.D. Jan 08 '19 at 01:00
  • Seeing as how they did pass a bill through both houses, that Trump indicated was acceptable, and then he reversed course after right-wing talk radio criticism, blaming the filibuster (again, the bill passed, so it was not the filibuster that stopped anything) seems misguided. – PoloHoleSet Feb 13 '19 at 16:01
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The simple answer is that they say so - they do not necessarily have to give a credible reason for why it is the Democratic Party's fault for people to believe them. For some, the President's words are enough.

For the more discerning mind, I'll take a bit of @Alexander O'Mara 's answer to explain. To summarize - in December, the Senate passed a bipartisan budget that did not include funding for the house. Right-leaning news sources criticized this, prior to the President's signage, as the president folding on the border wall. Trump refused to sign this bill, and over the Winter recess, the government shutdown began.

Now in January, the Democrats are submitting a very similar budget proposal to the one they submitted in December - and the argument being made by Mitch McConnell for not bringing it to the House floor is simple - the bill has already failed to get Presidential approval, and there is not enough support from his own party to override the Presidential veto, so the gesture from the Democrats is symbolic at best, and pointless at worst.

This echoes President Trump's views - that any negotiations with standing Senate leaders in the Democratic Party that do not address Trump's desire for border wall funding are pointless - because they will not meet his support and, likewise, not meet Republican party support in the House.

To summarize, while the bill sent to the House in December had enough support to make it to the President's desk, the lack of border wall funding in that bill had the President veto it. The Senate is now trying to push the old bill - and the Republican-Controlled house is rejecting it, with the explanation that it already does not meet with the President's approval.

Zibbobz
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