The quickest my senator has ever answered me
Thanks for sharing your views about the government shutdown and the bill to reopen it that I supported in the Senate.
Government shutdowns are something Virginians never take lightly, with 320,000 federal employees and tens of thousands of federal contractors, as well as everyone relying on the normal services of government. When the government shuts down, folks get laid off or lose critical services, members of the military must keep working without a guarantee of full pay, citizens can’t get answers about their tax refunds or Social Security benefits, air traffic grows chaotic and potentially even dangerous, and the economy suffers.
For over a month, I voted with my Democratic colleagues against a Republican spending bill that ignored any solutions to the skyrocketing health care costs facing Americans at year’s end as well as any restrictions on the Trump Administration’s illegal firings and agency closures. I have always said that to get my vote, I don’t need every “i” to be dotted and “t” crossed, but I must see new commitments on these two areas. I felt strongly enough about the importance of these issues that I voted down the Republican bill more than a dozen times to get them to take these requests seriously.
After 40 days, I joined a bipartisan group of Senators to support a deal to end the shutdown. I did so with progress on both these goals. First, I extracted a significant concession by writing provisions to bar the mass firing of federal employees and reinstating feds fired since the shutdown with full backpay. This will lead to the immediate reinstatement of over 4,000 people and protect 2.2 million more civilian feds across the nation. This was a huge win for federal workers who have been demonized, villainized, and illegally fired since this Administration came into office.
Second, this deal forces the Republicans in charge of Congress to hold an up or down vote on preventing the enormous increases in health care premiums currently scheduled to go into effect next year. Absent congressional action, some 20 million Americans could see their costs surge (Virginians could see premiums go up by 114 percent according to one analysis), and more than 3.5 million Americans could lose their coverage entirely. This commitment is a guarantee of a process, not an outcome, but Democrats have forced Republicans to at least negotiate over how to avert this dire health care cliff looming and to ensure lower- and middle-income families have access to affordable quality health care.
During the entire shutdown, President Trump refused to engage. He was busy offering Argentina a $20 billion bailout, undercutting American soybean farmers, taking a wrecking ball to the White House, hosting a “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago, jetting around the world, and making juvenile AI videos of Democratic congressional leaders wearing sombreros. The House of Representatives didn’t even convene for over a month while the Senate was working. Meanwhile, food banks across the country ran out of supplies. Americans went hungry after the Trump Administration cruelly withheld SNAP benefits (which 828,000 people in Virginia rely on, more than two-thirds families with children). Nearly 1.5 million federal employees went without pay, including air traffic controllers, leading to canceled flights, significant delays at airports, and a real risk of another crash like the tragic one at DCA earlier this year.
I know some people believe that extending the shutdown would have forced Republicans to offer more concessions that would have made this harm to ordinary people worth it in the end. But I was at the negotiating table, and I do not believe that was the case after talking with my Republican colleagues. In congressional negotiations where one party is in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, spending bills will be broadly favorable to that party’s priorities but with a few provisions and safeguards shaped by the Senate minority, which has a degree of influence due to the Senate filibuster. That influence prevents the minority from being simply ignored. It does not mean the minority can enact a comprehensive agenda that the majority opposes; that would require new elections.
With the deal that gained my vote to reopen the government, I achieved a substantial check on the Trump Administration’s ability to illegally destroy federal agencies and illegally fire federal employees. I built on my achievement from the 2019 shutdown of mandatory backpay for all federal employees, cutting off and reversing recent Trump Administration actions to get around that law by firing people. I also achieved the commitment that the Republicans must negotiate and vote on an issue, health care, that they’d been avoiding because they know any stance of letting these health premiums explode in 2026 is wrong and unpopular. I believe we will win this health care fight – either in Congress or at the ballot box. We have already rallied around this issue, and Americans know where Democrats stand on health care. Now we can debate this without the growing pain of the shutdown.
The shutdown is over, but my work is not. I intend to fight for the best health care deal that can be achieved, and if we cannot achieve it, voters will know where the two sides stand and will act accordingly. I also intend to continue my work to check the Trump Administration’s illegal use of emergency powers and tariff powers that have resulted in higher costs across the economy, as well as its flouting of war powers to potentially start illegal and foolish wars on multiple continents. I will use every bit of influence I have from the Senate minority to stop bad actions, slow them down if I can’t stop them, and encourage others to stand up for the rule of law.
I appreciate and take to heart the critiques of this decision I have heard. The incoming criticism has also been balanced by expressions of gratitude from federal employes, military families, food bank staff, veterans, and others. The thanks that meant the most to me came from the families of Flight 5342, those who lost loved ones in the air collision in Washington in January and are now fighting for safer skies for all Americans. They seek “stability, safety and public service.” That request sounds hard to achieve, even a relic of a past era, at a time like this. But if they, already having lost so much, refuse to give up on us, we shouldn’t either.
Government shutdowns are something Virginians never take lightly, with 320,000 federal employees and tens of thousands of federal contractors, as well as everyone relying on the normal services of government. When the government shuts down, folks get laid off or lose critical services, members of the military must keep working without a guarantee of full pay, citizens can’t get answers about their tax refunds or Social Security benefits, air traffic grows chaotic and potentially even dangerous, and the economy suffers.
For over a month, I voted with my Democratic colleagues against a Republican spending bill that ignored any solutions to the skyrocketing health care costs facing Americans at year’s end as well as any restrictions on the Trump Administration’s illegal firings and agency closures. I have always said that to get my vote, I don’t need every “i” to be dotted and “t” crossed, but I must see new commitments on these two areas. I felt strongly enough about the importance of these issues that I voted down the Republican bill more than a dozen times to get them to take these requests seriously.
After 40 days, I joined a bipartisan group of Senators to support a deal to end the shutdown. I did so with progress on both these goals. First, I extracted a significant concession by writing provisions to bar the mass firing of federal employees and reinstating feds fired since the shutdown with full backpay. This will lead to the immediate reinstatement of over 4,000 people and protect 2.2 million more civilian feds across the nation. This was a huge win for federal workers who have been demonized, villainized, and illegally fired since this Administration came into office.
Second, this deal forces the Republicans in charge of Congress to hold an up or down vote on preventing the enormous increases in health care premiums currently scheduled to go into effect next year. Absent congressional action, some 20 million Americans could see their costs surge (Virginians could see premiums go up by 114 percent according to one analysis), and more than 3.5 million Americans could lose their coverage entirely. This commitment is a guarantee of a process, not an outcome, but Democrats have forced Republicans to at least negotiate over how to avert this dire health care cliff looming and to ensure lower- and middle-income families have access to affordable quality health care.
During the entire shutdown, President Trump refused to engage. He was busy offering Argentina a $20 billion bailout, undercutting American soybean farmers, taking a wrecking ball to the White House, hosting a “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago, jetting around the world, and making juvenile AI videos of Democratic congressional leaders wearing sombreros. The House of Representatives didn’t even convene for over a month while the Senate was working. Meanwhile, food banks across the country ran out of supplies. Americans went hungry after the Trump Administration cruelly withheld SNAP benefits (which 828,000 people in Virginia rely on, more than two-thirds families with children). Nearly 1.5 million federal employees went without pay, including air traffic controllers, leading to canceled flights, significant delays at airports, and a real risk of another crash like the tragic one at DCA earlier this year.
I know some people believe that extending the shutdown would have forced Republicans to offer more concessions that would have made this harm to ordinary people worth it in the end. But I was at the negotiating table, and I do not believe that was the case after talking with my Republican colleagues. In congressional negotiations where one party is in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, spending bills will be broadly favorable to that party’s priorities but with a few provisions and safeguards shaped by the Senate minority, which has a degree of influence due to the Senate filibuster. That influence prevents the minority from being simply ignored. It does not mean the minority can enact a comprehensive agenda that the majority opposes; that would require new elections.
With the deal that gained my vote to reopen the government, I achieved a substantial check on the Trump Administration’s ability to illegally destroy federal agencies and illegally fire federal employees. I built on my achievement from the 2019 shutdown of mandatory backpay for all federal employees, cutting off and reversing recent Trump Administration actions to get around that law by firing people. I also achieved the commitment that the Republicans must negotiate and vote on an issue, health care, that they’d been avoiding because they know any stance of letting these health premiums explode in 2026 is wrong and unpopular. I believe we will win this health care fight – either in Congress or at the ballot box. We have already rallied around this issue, and Americans know where Democrats stand on health care. Now we can debate this without the growing pain of the shutdown.
The shutdown is over, but my work is not. I intend to fight for the best health care deal that can be achieved, and if we cannot achieve it, voters will know where the two sides stand and will act accordingly. I also intend to continue my work to check the Trump Administration’s illegal use of emergency powers and tariff powers that have resulted in higher costs across the economy, as well as its flouting of war powers to potentially start illegal and foolish wars on multiple continents. I will use every bit of influence I have from the Senate minority to stop bad actions, slow them down if I can’t stop them, and encourage others to stand up for the rule of law.
I appreciate and take to heart the critiques of this decision I have heard. The incoming criticism has also been balanced by expressions of gratitude from federal employes, military families, food bank staff, veterans, and others. The thanks that meant the most to me came from the families of Flight 5342, those who lost loved ones in the air collision in Washington in January and are now fighting for safer skies for all Americans. They seek “stability, safety and public service.” That request sounds hard to achieve, even a relic of a past era, at a time like this. But if they, already having lost so much, refuse to give up on us, we shouldn’t either.
