(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
For three days, Senate Democrats privately debated whether to support a House-passed continuing resolution (CR) keeping the government funded through September 30, or to block it with a filibuster, thus letting the government temporarily shut down.
At midweek, it looked as if Chuck Schumer had devised a deft plan: Propose an alternative resolution to keep the government open for 30 days and send that back to the Republican House. That way, if the House did not go along, the shutdown would be on the Republicans.
On Wednesday, Schumer emerged from two days of meetings to declare that the caucus was unified against the Republican six-month resolution and supporting the 30-day plan instead.
But it turned out that he was simply floating the idea to keep Senate progressives happy. He was confident that the more centrist Democrats would reject the idea and vote cloture to end a filibuster and send the six-month continuing resolution to President Trump. In a more sinister maneuver, he would allow Republicans to end debate on their CR in exchange for a vote on the 30-day resolution—a vote that would fail, leaving Republicans able to pass their bill by majority vote.
