Long before the U.S. Senate voted down the last hope of averting a federal government shutdown Tuesday night, the political blame game began in Virginia.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state Senate Republicans blamed Democrats for what he called “the Schumer Shutdown” — for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York who led the opposition to a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open on GOP terms.
Virginia’s two U.S. senators — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats and former governors — blamed President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress for trying to pass a funding resolution that they said ignored a pending health care crisis that will make insurance premiums unaffordable.
Meanwhile, labor unions for federal employees — about 340,000 of them living in Virginia — filed a lawsuit to prevent Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, from carrying through a threat to use a shutdown to fire workers in government programs that the president doesn’t like and don’t have funding appropriated for the fiscal year that began at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.
Those threats resonate strongly in parts of Virginia that already are feeling the economic consequences of Trump’s cuts in federal jobs and spending, with thousands of workers coming off the payroll at midnight on Tuesday after accepting buyout offers from the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“A shutdown is like a recession in our district — it’s tough,” said U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-10th, who represents a congressional district anchored in Loudoun County. “Unfortunately, it’s already been happening with this administration.”
Subramanyam and five other Virginia Democrats voted against the spending resolution that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives adopted on Sept. 19. That resolution did not include an extension for enhanced federal tax credits to help people pay insurance premiums for health care coverage through a state-run marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. Virginians will begin receiving notices of higher premiums this month for the insurance open enrollment period that begins on Nov. 1.
The insurance subsidies have become the central issue for Democrats already frustrated by a short-term spending bill that Republicans pushed through in March — with help from Schumer and a handful of other Democrats who feared giving Trump a freer hand during a government shutdown — and a massive tax-cut package that the president signed July 4. It will slash more than $1.2 trillion from Medicaid and other safety net programs, most of it after midterm elections next year.
U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, representing Richmond and much of the surrounding suburbs, said the funding resolution “at minimum” should extend the insurance subsidies.
“That would, at least, prevent millions of Americans from seeing their health care prices go up to the point they can’t afford their insurance anymore,” McClellan said Tuesday, hours before the Senate vote.
Virginia elections
The finger-pointing aims at looming elections, topped in Virginia by a race for governor between Democratic former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, as well as races for lieutenant governor, attorney general and all 100 seats in the House of Delegates. Both parties also are looking beyond to the midterm elections next year, with control of Congress on the line.
In Virginia, a government shutdown “introduces a wild card in an election that seems to be relatively stable, in terms of a clear lead for Spanberger,” Richmond political analyst Bob Holsworth said Tuesday.
Earle-Sears released a video on social media Tuesday afternoon that said “Abigail Spanberger Stands With Schumer and Democrats,” blaming her for the impending shutdown.
“Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want to shut down the government, and Abigail Spanberger is right there with them,” she said in the post. “This is all their fault.”
Spanberger described herself in an interview on Sunday with The Hill as “the fiercest advocate for avoiding shutdowns” during her three terms in Congress, representing Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, now based in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
“But ultimately, my expectation — what I want to see happen for the sake of Virginians, the economy and the basic function of our federal government — is for this president and Republican-led Congress to prioritize getting a bill across the finish line, getting a bill to the president’s desk and doing so quickly because the government shutdown is quickly coming upon us,” she told The Hill.
Spanberger said that Vought’s threat to “use a government shutdown as a reason to fire additional federal workers … is just one more additional reason” why Trump and Republican leaders should “work with Democratic leadership” to reach an agreement.
Trump, after canceling an earlier meeting with Democratic leaders, met with them on Monday afternoon, but the talks went nowhere.
Virginia Senate Republicans sent a letter to Warner and Kaine urging them to support the stopgap spending resolution without adding “a political wish list that has no chance of passing.”
“By pursuing this reckless strategy, Democrats are putting Virginia families, veterans, federal workers, and law enforcement at risk simply to appease their activist base,” said the letter from Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, and the other 18 Republicans in the state Senate.
Youngkin said in a social media post on Tuesday morning, “This Schumer Shutdown hurts Virginia and America.”
Warner and Kaine issued video statements that blamed Republicans for failing to try to reach a bipartisan agreement.
“So far, we’re seen nothing but a ‘Take it or leave it’ approach from the president and the Republicans,” Warner said.
Kaine said that a budget resolution should require Trump to live up to his promises, instead of reneging on funding commitments that Congress has adopted, as he did this year by rescinding $5 billion in approved spending.
“We want to know that a deal’s a deal,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-9th, presided over a pro forma House session on Tuesday attended almost entirely by Democrats because most Republicans had gone home. In a statement, Griffith said House and Senate Democrats “are more concerned about picking a fight with President Trump than looking out for the American people” and predicted they instead would give the president power “that they previously said they did not want him to have.”
U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, who represents parts of Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties, issued a statement that said the House spending resolution “would provide stability to the American people.” He drew criticism from Democrats for attending a lunch fundraiser for his campaign on Tuesday at the Capital Grille in Washington.
Wittman spokeswoman Abigail Gost responded that the congressman “is in D.C. today to work.”
“As you know, the House was originally scheduled to be in session today, so Congressman Wittman is in D.C. participating in previously scheduled meetings and events,” Gost said. “Since Mr. Wittman drives home [in Westmoreland County] every night, even when votes are cancelled in the House last minute, he tries to keep his schedule intact.”
Michael Martz
(804) 649-6964
mmartz@timesdispatch.com
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