Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) shouldn't wait until late September to learn what Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) already understands.
Another shutdown fight is coming, and Democrats have a clean political incentive to force it.
They can block a funding bill, blame President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and Republicans, then count on the press to file the paperwork. The Senate still requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation, which means a Republican majority alone can't keep the government funded.
The calendar is blunt. Fiscal year 2027 begins on Oct. 1, and the normal appropriations process isn't on pace to finish before then. Federal agencies either need a full-year appropriation or a continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown.
Recent budget tracking shows the House has made progress while the Senate hasn't. Waiting until the last week would give Democrats the stage, the clock, and the talking points.
Republicans should bring a clean CR to the floor now and make every senator vote. If Democrats reject it, bring it back. Then bring full appropriations bills to the floor and make them vote on those, too. From the Daily Signal:
Senate Democrats are already refusing to operate in good faith ahead of the fiscal year 2027 government funding deadline. Feeling emboldened by their previous shutdown tactics, they plan to run the exact same play ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Rather than waiting until September, Republicans should force votes on a continuing resolution immediately upon returning from the Independence Day recess. Such a resolution would be a temporary funding measure passed by Congress to keep the federal government operating at existing or near-existing spending levels
By putting a CR on the floor in mid-July, Senate Republicans can show the Democrats they will not assent to another shutdown, and that the fight to keep the government open will start as early as possible.
If Democrats refuse to provide their votes, Republicans will have demonstrated who is driving the country toward a shutdown—and will be in a far stronger position to deploy more aggressive procedural tactics to stop it.
Keep the Senate in session through August if necessary. A party that wants to shut down the government shouldn't be allowed to do it from behind a curtain and then stroll before the cameras as a rescue squad.
The Democratic National Committee has looked less like a confident governing party and more like a machine trying to survive another Trump term. Ken Martin, DNC chair, said he took over three months after Democrats' 2024 loss and asked how the party lost to Trump again after spending billions. From Martin's report:
In less than six months, we have midterm elections. In two years, a presidential election.
I agree with folks who have said we have to learn from the past to win the future. Decades into my political career, and now having served as DNC Chair for a year and a half, there are clear lessons that I have zeroed in on, deeply believe our Party must address, and can attest we are already implementing in our work as we look ahead to this election cycle and beyond:
We can’t just be anti-Trump, we must have an affirmative agenda to sell the American people. In the wake of the 2024 election, we have seen Democrats run and win on a positive message around affordability, centering on kitchen table issues and the needs of working families. It’s resonating.
We can’t stop campaigning at the end of an election cycle, we have to always be “on.” Our Republican counterparts are running campaigns 365 days a year, and we can’t let them define us for voters before we get a chance to define ourselves.
Campaign ads are not a substitute for the deep relationship building we need to do with voters to win elections. This is especially true with voters who have felt ignored, left out, or left behind. We should invest in organizing early and connecting with our communities before we need their votes. To do this, we’ll need to ask our donors to chip in a little bit earlier, as well.
We can no longer take our voters for granted. Communities that have been considered “mobilization” targets, like young voters, need to be treated like “persuasion” targets.
While we are laser-focused on winning the elections ahead of us in November, we also have to keep our eyes trained on the long-game – how we win 5, 10, and 30 years down the line. That’s where the party comes in. We can’t expect to win if we don’t show up. We have to invest in building infrastructure and restoring credibility with communities that feel we have abandoned them.
Since then, donors, influencers, and party operatives have been openly nervous about the health of the DNC under Martin's leadership.
A party in that condition needs leverage wherever it can find it. It can't stop President Trump's agenda by winning the argument on border security, spending, energy, crime, or the courts.
It can, however, create disruption and hope pain becomes political fog. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has already been framing Democrats' mission around holding Trump and Republicans accountable.
Well, we're going to continue to defend every single House incumbent. Ultimately, however, it's going to be up to the people, and that's the reality of serving in the House of Representatives, the institution the Framers designed to be the closest to the American people. We have only two-year employment contracts. We've got to go back to the people every other year. And everyone is going to have to make their case to the individuals that they're privileged to represent. And that's what they'll continue to do. And I've indicated, whether it's a progressive incumbent, whether it's a Blue Dog, whether it's a New Dem, I'm going to support Members of the House Democratic Caucus. And then we all have to come together to actually push back against this unprecedented attack on our democracy, unprecedented attack on free and fair elections and unprecedented attack on Black representation in the American South and all across the country, which is what the Supreme Court's decision and Callais has unleashed.
A shutdown gives them the largest megaphone left.
Republicans should treat that plan with the seriousness it deserves. No more pretending the fight is really about procedure; no more assuming Democrats will reward “good faith” once the deadline gets close.
Last year's shutdown fight showed the pattern. Democrats held out for health care subsidy demands while federal workers missed pay, food aid was delayed, and flights were cut.
The lesson wasn't subtle.
Thune and Johnson have the gavels, and they should use them before Democrats use the calendar. A July vote gives Republicans time to define the fight. It tells voters who is ready to fund the government and who is ready to block it.
It also forces vulnerable Democrats to choose between their national party's obstruction strategy and the people back home who expect basic services to continue.
Risk comes with every real fight. Some Republicans will have to take tough votes, some will complain about losing recess time, and some will prefer another closed-door negotiation that ends with a bloated bill and a ready grin for the cameras.
Voters have seen enough of that; they didn't send Republicans to Washington to manage decline with better manners.
Democrats are betting on chaos because chaos is useful when a party has no better offer. Republicans should call the vote now, keep calling it, and make Democrats own every “no.”
The shutdown threat is already here; the only question is whether Republicans will confront it while they still have time or wait until Democrats have already written the script.
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