Shutdown history is clear: Public pressure on Congress leads to a short-term funding deal
There have been more than a dozen federal government shutdowns since 1981. Credit: AP/Allison Robbert
WASHINGTON — More than 40 years of government shutdowns show that the path to reopening the government usually follows a familiar path.
Congress, responding to public pressure, ultimately passes a short-term spending deal to fund the government, usually without meeting the demands of the minority party or sitting president, even as both parties rush to sell the reopening as a victory.
There have been more than a dozen federal government shutdowns since 1981, when a Carter-era legal opinion asserted that any lapses in government funding would force the closure of unfunded agencies. Before the memo, agencies remained open as lawmakers hashed out an agreement, but the closures forced a new era of partisan brokering as both parties sought concessions from the funding negotiations.
While both parties appeared more willing to broker compromises in the Reagan, Bush and Clinton eras, by the Obama and Trump eras both parties were less willing to let the other side notch any concessions, political scholars told Newsday.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Past government shutdowns usually ended when Congress, responding to public pressure, passed a short-term spending deal to fund the government.
- Generally the demands of the minority party or sitting president were unmet, even as both parties rushed to sell the reopening as a victory.
- By the Obama and Trump eras, both parties were even less willing to let the other side notch any concessions.
"They’re suicide missions," said Richard Himelfarb, a professor of political science at Hofstra University. "The history of these shutdowns is that the party that shuts down the government ... loses. They end up making a demand, having that demand rejected and ultimately come with their tails between their legs to the majority."
No concessions
Nearly two weeks into the current shutdown, congressional Democrats led by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries have not backed down from their demand that a bill to reopen the government include an extension of soon-to-expire public health care subsidies.
Republicans, in control of both chambers of Congress but still in need of eight Senate Democratic votes to pass the bill, have refused to engage in further negotiations, arguing the issue should be debated later. Meanwhile, the White House raised the stakes on Friday when it started issuing layoff notices to federal employees.
With the Senate in recess until Tuesday and the House scheduled for a fourth week of recess under the order of Speaker Mike Johnson, lawmakers at home in their districts may start to feel more of the public pressure that usually drives action in Washington, said former Long Island congressman Steve Israel, a Huntington Democrat who served in the U.S. House from 2001 to 2017.
"As shutdowns drag on, members of Congress return to their districts and hear more anger by voters who can’t access federal services or visit federal sites like national parks," Israel told Newsday in a phone interview. "At that point members from both parties feel a greater pressure to find a path to put the shutdown behind them. That usually takes weeks, but not months."
Former Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Seaford Republican and veteran of shutdowns through the Clinton, Obama and Trump presidencies, said he has always argued against using a shutdown as leverage to gain policy concessions. He said that was true even when President Donald Trump was on the other end of the phone line urging King in January 2019 to support his bid to keep up a weekslong shutdown to pressure Democrats into funding the U.S. Southern border wall.
"I told him respectfully, ‘Mr. President, this makes no sense, we’re going to end up back where we started or probably worse,’" King said, recounting the conversation.
Trump eventually backed off his push to include border wall funding in a short-term spending bill, as airport delays tied to the shutdown rippled through the country. The shutdown that started in mid-December 2018, ended 35 days later in January 2019, the longest shutdown on record.
'It's much worse now'
King said that while in Congress, he noticed with each passing administration it became more challenging to negotiate stopgap agreements that provided both sides with some level of concessions.
"It’s much worse now, because back then you had, I would say more normal people in both parties, and you could sort of reach out and talk to them. Now, if you’re even seen talking to the other side, you’re considered a traitor," King said.
Karen Hult, a professor of political science at Virginia Tech, said it’s difficult to glean from past shutdowns how this one might end because "the party system and the relationships among the branches has changed so much even since 2018," when Trump presided over three government shutdowns.
"The negotiating space that's there for discussions is really quite limited," Hult told Newsday in a phone interview, noting the growing partisan entrenchment. "It’s very difficult to get across that broad middle chasm between the two parties, even though that's where it appears as though many U.S. voters are placing themselves."
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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