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Posted on 10/21/2025 8:23:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don't know, man. This smells like a trap, even if Sen. John Fetterman offers this honestly.
Ever since September 30, the Senate has had a clean continuing resolution on the table that will allow for several weeks of negotiations on the FY2026 budget. Senate Democrats refuse to end their filibuster, demanding well over a trillion dollars' worth of concessions, including the effective repeal of key parts of the GOP's reconciliation package that passed over the summer. For three weeks, Chuck Schumer has kept the government (mainly) shut down, and still refuses to consider ending the impasse.
One big part of his caucus disagrees. Fetterman has voted to end debate and pass the CR each time it has come to the floor, and he's tired of the hypocrisy from his fellow Democrats. Today he "stunned reporters" by endorsing a rules change that would carve out clean CRs as an exception to filibusters:
Senator John Fetterman stunned reporters on Capitol Hill after backing Republicans’ call to “nuke the filibuster” to reopen the government.
REPORTER: “Some of your Republican colleagues have proposed ‘nuking’ the filibuster to force the government to reopen. What do you make of… pic.twitter.com/arEQljyWEa— Overton (@overton_news) October 21, 2025
“There are no winners here. It’s not getting better every day here. People are going to start to get really hungry, and I’ve been fully, fully committed to fund SNAP, open up the government,” he said, before noting U.S. Capitol Police officers aren’t getting paid during the shutdown.
“This is just bad political theater. Open it up,” he said.
Asked if he would support Republicans “nuking” the filibuster to let a House-passed funding measure pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote, Fetterman replied affirmatively.
“Carve it out for that, absolutely,” he said of a proposal to create a carve-out in the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation through the Senate to allow the government to reopen.
“We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it. Carve it out so we can move on. I support it because it makes it more difficult to shut the government down in the future, and that’s where it’s entirely appropriate,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it.”
True enough, to a point. Democrats didn't run on getting a small carve-out for clean CRs, though -- they ran on nuking the filibuster entirely.
Why does that matter? It does sound reasonable to create an exception for clean CRs; in fact, it sounds more reasonable than the convoluted mess of reconciliation packages, a process which includes "Byrd baths," "vote-a-ramas," and hands legislative authority to an unelected official in the Senate parliamentarian. A clean CR just extends the previous budget authority for defined periods of time until Congress can complete a budget. What could go wrong?
A few things, actually. For one thing, the lack of a filibuster on clean CRs while keeping it for other budget bills (other than reconciliation) would incentivize Congress to rely on clean CRs rather than doing actual budgeting. Theoretically, at least, Congress could go years without passing a real budget, which would turn the FY2025 budget into a weird self-perpetuating baseline that would maintain the status quo in DC. It is very easy to imagine that this would be more than theoretical, too, given the political incentives and disincentives around budgeting.
More importantly, it would erode the protection of the filibuster in other aspects too. Harry Reid's nuclear option in 2013 has already done tremendous damage to the idea of consensus-building when it comes to judges and political appointees. Extending that to budgets will make those more partisan in nature too, and eventually, we'll end up with a Senate that operates just like the House, only with older representatives. (Worth noting: This would be much less of an issue if we repealed the 17th Amendment and returned the Senate to being accountable to the states.)
Mostly, though, one has to question why the GOP would bother at this point. The Schumer Shutdown is handing enormous power to Trump, and is allowing Russ Vought to start draining the swamp with gusto. It's not selling as a Trump issue with voters, and Democrats keep losing ground with voters the longer they refuse to pass the clean CR on the floor under the current rules.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has the right idea:
.@LeaderJohnThune: "People keep saying, 'Negotiate!' — Negotiate what? I don't know what that is right now. The government needs to open up, and then we're happy to sit down and talk about any other issues the Democrats want to talk about." pic.twitter.com/LCms5PQq3K— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 21, 2025
That's the message that Republicans need to keep hammering home. That's a winning message. Let Schumer twist in the wind with his filibuster as long as he wants.
Hard no. They own it
“Let Schumer twist in the wind with his filibuster as long as he wants.”
This.
Never interrupt your enemy when he’s screwing the pooch on live TV.
I am fine with it. Let Chuck own it for once. Democrats will be losing jobs permanently so its still serious winning.
Exactly. Make some democrats face their voters wrath. Keep it closed and keep firing democrats in gov’t.
never end the government shutdown. Why would you ever want these fools (every last one of them down to the last man, woman and lizard) to go back to the devil’s work. We are doing fine without them. Let them work in food service.
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Instead, the Republicans let the Democrats phone it in. Bleh!
We’ve got his permission. Does it count?
Keep it shut down til Schumer says calf rope, Leroy.
Keep it shut down til Schumer says calf rope, Leroy.
What is this all about anyway? ACA for US citizens or illegals only?
Sorry but I don’t want the shutdown to last forever. I want our military paid. I want our air traffic controllers paid. I want our Ice
Agents paid.
I want the filibuster ended. We have less than a year to get policies and appts through Congress. The Democrat Senators will block every effort. If we do the right things on policy and we lose then so be it. We will lose if we are not bold enough to make serious changes while .trump is President. We cannot make those changes with the current filibuster requirement of 60 votes.
No.
The filibuster is admittedly a pain in the lower backside but it’s what stops mob rule by simple majorities. Keep it.
The Democrats will be happy to shut down the government until the Midterms.
So the Republicans should wait until November and if there's no deal.
Nike the filibuster.
Republicans would get “killed” so to say without the filibuster, senatorially.
The Democrats can always peel off 3-5 liberal republicans. There’s always Murkowski, there’s often a Romney or two in the wind, and Graham frequently goes. McCain used to be reliably Democrat too and even Cornyn and McConnell have been squish.
Keep the filibuster.
These are-holes are getting paid no matter what. They don’t give a crap about anything but power. We know what’s going on.
We are already starting week 4 of a 7 week CR. So even if it passes on 10/22, we have another round of this scheduled for a few weeks from now.
I for one am really tired of "CR Fatigue" and I'm ready for a return to how we made ourselves GREAT in the first place. Pass an annual budget now and stop the every 2 month clown show.
If the Dems win the propaganda war (and they control the news media) then it will be destructive to keep it going.
But I say do not negotiate with Dem terrorists to release the hostage people who need their paychecks, or the air traffic control people. Let them all riot against the Dems (maybe like the Bonus Army after WWI).
Don’t let money for illegals and money for worse Obamacare be payment to the Dem terrorists.
If CNN is true in polls:
In a Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted October 15-20, Americans blamed congressional Republicans more than Democrats, 50%-43%.
The gap was larger in a CNBC poll conducted October 8-12. It showed Americans blamed Trump and the Republicans over Democrats, 53%-37%. (Independents blamed Trump by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, 58%-21%.)
Before the shutdown started, polls showed the blame game favoring Democrats by between 7 and 11 points. Polling since it started has shown it favoring Democrats by between 7and 17 points.
I disagree. These chains hang heavy on Schumer’s neck. Let it rest on him like an albatross for as long as he and his cohorts are determined to keep their collective heads firmly implanted up their rear ends.
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