Copyright The New York Times
The bitter rebukes came from every corner of the Democratic Party on Tuesday. Moderate House members, progressive senators, self-described insurgents and establishment candidates alike all expressed the same, vehement opposition to the deal that eight senators in the Democratic Caucus struck to end the nation’s longest government shutdown. They denounced a compromise they said had done nothing to realize their party’s main demand in the 41-day shutdown fight: the extension of health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. “A deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them,” Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, said. “Any deal that lets health care costs continue to skyrocket is unacceptable,” wrote Roy Cooper, the former North Carolina governor who is hoping to flip a Senate seat next year. Yet on Capitol Hill, the faction of Democrats who hatched the agreement said their stance was a pragmatic — if politically unpopular — move to bring an end to a crisis that had lasted 40 days and had brought their party no closer to achieving its goal. “Many of my friends are unhappy,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said in a floor speech on Monday. “They think we should have kept our government closed indefinitely to protest the policies of the Trump administration.” But Mr. Durbin, who like the seven other defectors is not running for re-election next year, said that he could not “accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor’s paycheck or the food for his children.” The dispute was the latest evidence of a Democratic Party still deeply at odds over its direction and how best to counter President Trump and congressional Republicans who have attacked and sidelined them at every turn. Less than a week after a strong showing in elections left them feeling as though they finally had the wind at their backs, the shutdown deal has plunged Democrats into their latest round of sharp — and public — infighting. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader who held Democrats together for well over a month in the shutdown fight and ultimately opposed the deal himself, came in for some of the harshest criticism, with several lawmakers and candidates in the party calling for his ouster. “After last week’s election results, we’re back to Democrats in disarray,” Jim Manley, a political strategist who spent 21 years working as a Senate aide, said. “Which is pretty damn depressing.” Still, Mr. Manley, who once worked for the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, acknowledged that the decision to end the shutdown was rooted in practicality. “I never could figure out how you could ever get Republicans to vote for the health care extension,” Mr. Manley said. “But on the other hand, as far as I’m concerned, doing nothing was not an option.” Digging in, however, was beginning to take a toll for some Democrats. The White House was refusing to fund full food stamp benefits, a devastating consequence for low-income Americans, and federal employees continued to go without paychecks, while air-travel delays were creating chaos around the country. Despite all of that, many Democrats said ending the fight without securing any kind of health care deal was disastrous and disheartening at a time when voters are looking to them to do more. “What has worked in the past is not working now,” Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a moderate, said on Monday, later adding, “We need to meet the moment, and we’re not doing that.” On Sunday night, as it became clear that there were enough defectors in his ranks to allow the deal to move, Mr. Schumer sought to project a united Democratic front, insisting that his party remained together on its goal of avoiding health care premium increases. But by Monday morning, he was emphasizing his opposition to the deal that members of his own party had negotiated. He called it a “Republican bill” that “fails to do anything of substance to fix America’s health care crisis.” Still, Mr. Schumer’s opposition to the deal did not shield him from a litany of criticism that he had failed to keep his party together. The vitriol has been particularly hot from House Democrats, who have been sidelined in their own chamber and were furious when Mr. Schumer in March led a bloc of Democrats who provided the votes to help Republicans push through a stopgap spending measure to avoid a shutdown. “Eight Democrats caving to empty promises is an indefensible leadership failure,” Representative Delia Ramirez, a left-leaning Democrat from Illinois, said in a social media post. “For the sake of our country, Schumer needs to resign.” Yet in contrast to the House, where strict majority rule dilutes the power of members of the minority to force or block action, the Senate operates according to consensus, limiting the ability of leaders of either party to keep their own rank-and-file from splintering and cutting a deal with the other party. It is not clear what actions Mr. Schumer could have taken to thwart the faction in his ranks, including two senators who are retiring, that had grown anxious to find a compromise to break the impasse. From the start of the shutdown, a group of Democrats, many of them centrists from swing states, had been quietly eyeing a path to a deal. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, one of those involved in the negotiations, said that her group had kept Mr. Schumer “in the loop, and he was open to our conversation.” Some of them had privately committed to hold firm through Nov. 1, the start of the open enrollment period for people who receive health care coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Already, premiums are poised to rise for many Americans who buy insurance through the federal marketplace. Democrats hope to make those increases a potent line of attack against Republicans in next year’s midterm elections, particularly given the tough odds of getting a bill to extend the expiring subsidies through the G.O.P.-controlled Congress. There were signs that Mr. Schumer was on safer political ground than in March. Even as a chorus of House Democrats called on him to step aside as leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York voiced his support. Asked if Mr. Schumer was a good party leader and should keep his position, Mr. Jeffries replied, “Yes and yes.” And while many Democrats who did not vote for the deal have publicly denounced it, some of them have privately expressed relief that the shutdown will soon be over, according to three people familiar with internal party discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly. Outside Capitol Hill, though, disparate wings of the Democratic Party that are often at odds appeared to unite in shared revulsion for the compromise. Ezra Levin, the executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, accused some Senate Democrats of a “surrender.” The deal, he said in a statement, was “bad policy that will raise health care prices.” Jonathan Cowan, the president of the center-left group Third Way, argued that Democrats had given up on the fight well before it needed to be over. “Ultimately, Democrats may not have succeeded in extending the A.C.A. subsidies, but now we will never know,” Mr. Cowan said in a statement. “To paraphrase Bill Clinton, one of America’s most pugnacious Democratic centrists, we should have been ready to fight ‘until the last dog dies.’” Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
