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Republicans Begin Grumbling About Their Shutdown Strategy

WASHINGTON ― Rank-and-file Republicans are getting antsy about their party’s political strategy for the government shutdown amid bad polls and Democrats holding out longer than expected.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has kept the House out of session since late September to pressure Senate Democrats into voting for a House-passed government funding bill. So far, Senate Democrats have rejected the bill seven times.

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Now, some Republican House members are questioning Johnson’s stay-away strategy as the possibility looms that they’ll spend another week back in their districts. Early polling suggests more people blame Republicans for the standoff.

“The speaker shouldn’t even think about cancelling [the] session for a third straight week,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) wrote Wednesday on social media.

One House Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told HuffPost at least some of their colleagues belong back in D.C. right now: “I think it makes sense for at least appropriators [to] be doing stuff.”

During a conference call on Thursday, several other Republican House members reportedly told the speaker he should bring them back to Washington.

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“I think we’re gonna get to a point where it’s damaging to continue to keep the House out of session,” Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) said on the call, according to MSNBC. “I think we’ve gotten to that point.”

There are some doubts about the House strategy on the Senate side, too.

“I think you got to be here,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters on Thursday. “Get in, do your work, go home. I think they should be here.”

Another split among House Republicans: Some are calling for a vote on standalone legislation to ensure active-duty members of the military don’t miss a paycheck next week.

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“I’m urging the Speaker and our House leadership to immediately pass my bill to ensure our servicemembers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck while supporting their families, receive the pay they’ve earned,” Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) said Wednesday on X. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a former member of House leadership, backed the vote demand on Thursday.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has said he supports a standalone troops bill, while Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) oppose it.

“We have already voted to pay the troops,” Johnson said Thursday. “We did it three weeks ago. We put the bill on the floor, Republicans voted to pay the troops, TSA, air traffic control, everybody else. The Democrats voted no.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), meanwhile, has gone rogue, echoing Democrats’ complaints about health insurance premiums and saying Republicans own the shutdown. (She’s also said Senate Republicans should go ahead and nuke the filibuster instead of waiting for Democrats to vote for their bill.)

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Despite the small number of dissenting voices, the shutdown has been a stalemate since it started, with Republicans continuing to demand Senate Democrats vote for their bill funding the government into November, while Democrats continue demanding an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies.

Democrats remain almost entirely united on their side, with a handful of exceptions. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted with Republicans on their funding bill in the first place, and three Senate Democrats have consistently voted for it as well. Republicans’ hopes that more Senate Democrats would have folded by now have turned out to be mistaken so far, and the impasse could carry on for weeks.

House Democratic leaders are taking advantage of the fact that Republicans are all back in the districts as many Democrats stay in D.C., demanding their counterparts return and holding events to publicize their fight to protect health care subsidies.

“It’s unbelievable. Members of the House Republican Conference are upset and perplexed that their leadership has them on vacation week after week after week,” Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol.

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“The last day the House was in session was Sept. 19. Republicans got outta town before sundown, and we haven’t seen them back in Washington since,” Jeffries said. “This is a crisis… and House Republicans remain on vacation.”

On Thursday, Senate GOP leaders floated an offer to Democrats, promising a future vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies if they agree to reopen the government. That trial balloon was quickly shot down by Democratic senators, who said they needed more assurances that any deal involving an extension of the subsidies would ultimately become law.

“Does it help? Yeah. Would it be enough? No,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said of the offer. “It depends on how much more comes with that and what sort of certainty we might get from the House and the president.”

“We need a lot more than just we’re gonna have one vote in the Senate, but it’s progress,” he added.