The No. 4 Democrat in the House is egging on Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster as each side blames the other for the current government shutdown.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said it would take a simple Senate rule change to end the shutdown, referring to the 60-vote threshold that gives the minority party leverage for most pieces of legislation.
“GOP controls government. They control what bills get voted on and the vote thresholds for each bill. Senate GOP can pass their bad funding bill today if they felt like it,” Lieu said Thursday on X, calling his post a “reminder” on day two of the shutdown.
Senate Republicans have ruled out an end to the filibuster, something long sought by Democrats, and did so again after the government shut down on Wednesday. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the Senate majority whip, told reporters that abolishing the filibuster was “not in the cards.”
The message from Lieu is nonetheless meant to pin Republicans with responsibility for the shutdown, given their control of Congress and the White House. He noted that Senate leadership went “nuclear” and changed the rules last month to allow nominees to be approved in large batches, rather than one by one on the Senate floor.
The change was made in the face of a Democratic blockade that had slowed the confirmation of roughly 150 nominees.
The messaging from House Democrats comes as both parties navigate the shutdown in the court of public opinion, with polls offering conflicting results on whom voters view as most at fault.
Lieu and his party are demanding healthcare concessions as part of any deal to reopen the government and have denied Republicans the votes on a seven-week funding bill. But Republicans say a short-term spending patch, which has failed on the Senate floor three times, is not the place to negotiate over policy provisions.
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They have peeled off two Democrats and one independent to support their bill, but the filibuster means they need eight for passage. The bill already cleared the House last month in a mostly party-line vote.
“We’re going to continue to bring this continuing resolution to the floor,” Barrasso said. “Three Democrats voted with us yesterday. I know there’s some more that are considering it. We’re going to reopen the government. The Democrats are going to vote for this, and then we can discuss all the other topics later on.”
Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.