Posted on 11/10/2025 12:23:10 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic senators — eight in total — faced almost instant blowback from members of their own party as they voted to allow the Senate to move forward on compromise legislation that would reopen the government.
Their decision Sunday night was labeled a “betrayal” and “pathetic” by some of the most prominent voices in the Democratic Party.
“To my mind, this was a very, very bad vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The group of defectors consisted of several senators who are retiring next year, as well as a number of former governors. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana praised them Monday morning, saying they “decided to put principle over their personal politics.”
The group of moderate Democrats surely knew the criticism that was coming when they broke with the rest of their party on the 40th day of the government shutdown. But after huddling for hours — often in the Senate basement — over the last week, each senator reached the same conclusion: It was time for the government shutdown to end.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Shaheen, a senior Democrat who will be retiring from the Senate, often took the lead in negotiating the compromise legislation to end the shutdown. She had made it a priority to extend subsidies for health plans offered under the Affordable Care Act, but she had also expressed reservations about voting to shut down the government.
In the end, she settled for a pledge from Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota to hold a vote in December on the health subsidies.
“This was the only deal on the table. It was our best chance to reopen the...
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
It is interesting that exactly enough Dems crossed the line. Not one more, not one less. Did the Dems want the shutdown to end but not want to appear to have wanted it to end? Did they select which Senators were to cross? The 8:
- “Richard” Durbin: Retiring after this term.
- Angus King: Officially an independent that caucuses with the Dems.
- Tim Kaine: Not up for reelection until 2030. (He’s also from Virginia with a lot of furloughed voters.)
- John Fetterman: Not up for reelection until 2028.
- Jeanne Shaheen: Retiring after this term.
- Maggie Hassan: Not up for reelection until 2028.
- Catherine Cortez Masto: Not up for reelection until 2028.
- Jacky Rosen: Not up for reelection until 2030.
Not a single one will be running for reelection next cycle.
Angus King, Jr. is neither a moderate, nor a democrat.
Here is where the little rats at AP rush in to twist and spin this into a win and also to save the dems who crossed over.
I would expect every one of them (except maybe Fetterman) to vote against the bill.
With 52 Senators voting YES, all of the Democrats can vote NO and tell their constituents that they voted against the CR (even though the vote FOR cloture was a de facto vote for the CR).
That's how they will "explain" it -- history will forget the cloture vote and only remember the final vote on the bill.
-PJ
Exactly as you speculate. There were reports it would end after the off off year elections and less than a week after it has ended. So much of politics is staged that this is the obvious conclusion. Despite the media cheerleading and the delusion that they were “winning” the shutdown the dims had probably had enough of their so called leverage play and were beginning to sense political danger if it continued into the holidays.
“Here’s how they explain it”
This is supposed to be a news story?
Dirty Dick Durbin has run out of luck.
The rest will jockey for a better place on the Rat pecking order, while backstabbing any other Rat in the way.
After the fallout it will still be Satan's DemoRat Party.
They assigned 8 to do it so the others could complain. Schumer announced the deal but voted no. Such BS.
Every one of these senators and their staffers wants to fly home for the holidays. They were sweating having to stand in long lines or having their own flights home cancelled.
But...but...I thought the Republicans were who shut down the government? So how could they have voted “with the Republicans” to allow it to reopen?
We weren’t being lied to, were we? < / s >
“It is interesting that exactly enough Dems crossed the line..”
It wasn’t a secret that they might do this. I think as recently as yesterday I heard they felt like this was going bad for them and so tried to choose the minimum needed from those that had the least to lose.
Let them frame it however they want. WE know they got their asses whooped and their base SURELY knows it.
Tim Kaine said he was paying too much to the elections when asked why this “deal” could not have been struck from the beginning...LOL
Exactly right and exactly how Sen. Kennedy predicted it would go down a month ago. I have some doubts schmukie is going to able to pull it off. The rat base and media seem to be very much blaming crying Chuck for getting nothing for the stupid shut down.
Hopefully Rosen got enough hassle from Nevadans to move her to the yes column. I know she (her aides) heard from me.
“Here’s how they explain it”
This is supposed to be a news story?
**************
Yeah, I don’t remember AP doing an ‘splaining’ on Republicans who voted to end past shutdowns. Just a “Thank God WE’RE in power and they had to come to heel.”
Exactly! That is why 4 of the 8 were either from Nevada or New Hampshire -- purple states where danger was clearly sensed.
Apparently, the democratic party wanted to end the shutdown, and to continue pretending that they were against ending the shutdown.
8 democrats were ‘allowed’ to join republicans, but most other democrat pundits were at the ready to impugn the crossovers as traitors. If the democrat leadership wasn’t so adamant on opposing Trump and republicans on anything, chances are that, a much bigger number of senate democrats would have joined to end the shutdown.
It was definitely planned and staged. It was supposed to protect Schumer but he is toast. AOC will primary him for sure.
Rand Paul is a sure NO also.
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