Facing this kind of pressure, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer probably cannot prolong the government shutdown.
Indeed, from Schumer’s perspective, the shutdown-related harm inflicted on military service members, for instance, means nothing compared to a loss of support from the nation’s largest public-sector union.
In a statement issued Monday, American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley demanded an end to the shutdown.
“This week, Congress pushed our nation into the fourth week of a full government shutdown — an avoidable crisis that is harming families, communities, and the very institutions that hold our country together,” Kelley wrote, thereby correctly noting that Congress, not President Donald Trump, holds the government’s purse strings. “Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight.”
The AFGE president then called upon Congress to do what Republican legislators have repeatedly done: vote for a clean continuing resolution.