House Dems’ Problem Children Who Ended the Shutdown
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
By now you’ve read the news the shut down ended thanks to a few House Democrats caving and crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP.
These are the problem children:
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) – running for re-election, district rated R+2
Jared Golden (ME-02) – NOT running for re-election
Adam Gray (CA-13) – running for re-election, toss-up district
Don Davis (NC-01) – running for re-election, district rated R+1
Henry Cuellar (TX-28) – running for re-election, district rated R+2
Tom Suozzi (NY-03) – running for re-election, toss-up district
Some are the usual suspects, like Golden and Cuellar and Suozzi.
All of these races are gettable by a Democrat firmly left of these boneheads given the current dissatisfaction with the Trump administration and his party of enablers. As Charles Gaba pointed out, “Dems have overperformed an avg of 15 pts across 55 Special Elections so far, winning 36 of them including *flipping* 6 GOP seats!” Democrats running on affordability have done very well.
Golden apparently can read the weather and is bailing out. But the rest of these reps need to be primaried — even Cuellar who has been primaried in the past and survived. Suozzi must think affordability is a NYC thing and doesn’t affect his district.
Gluesenkamp Perez is particularly annoying because of her bullshit party bashing about the shutdown. She posted this on the Nazi bar site:
Tonight, I voted to end this partisan car crash of a shutdown. Nobody likes paying even more money to insurance companies – and the fight to stop runaway health insurance premiums won’t be won by holding hungry Americans hostage. Americans can’t afford for their Representatives to get so caught up in landing a partisan win that they abandon their obligation to come together to solve the urgent problems that our nation faces.
The last several weeks have been a case study in why most Americans can’t stand Congress. None of my friends who rely on SNAP would want to trade their dinner for an ambiguous D.C. beltway “messaging victory” and I’m glad this ugly scene is in the rearview mirror.
Now, it’s time for Congress to get back to work and build an economy where people aren’t yanked around by partisan interests, where we understand national health doesn’t come from insurance coverage – and reestablish a truly deliberative democracy. I’ll work with whoever is necessary to reach those goals – and I don’t give a damn which side of the aisle they sit on.
8:28 PM · Nov 12, 2025
Emphasis mine.
Bet she wouldn’t turn down money from the DCCC for her re-election campaign. Biting the hand, much?
Apparently Gluesenkamp Perez is pretty dense as are these other Dems. What leverage does the Democratic Party have now to negotiate a reinstatement of healthcare subsidies? Because if she knows of any, she can’t be arsed to offer it.
Here’s a snapshot of the problem, offered in a joking manner:
Shoshana @[email protected]
Rent: $3,200
Health Insurance: $2,600
Avocado Toast: $8Someone who is good at the economy, please help me with my avocado toast budget
AltText for image above: Screenshot of healthcare plans without the ACA subsidies. 2025 plan was $45, 2026 plan will be $2,620. The deductible will increase from $800 to $6,000, primary care visits increase from $5 to $40, ER costs go from $0 to 40% co-insurance
The poster may offer this in a lighthearted fashion but the looming threat is real: a sizeable number of Americans will have to choose between paying for rent/mortgage/food and healthcare insurance. For many of these folks this will be a matter of life or death.
Trying to protect more than 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA marketplace and healthcare subsidies isn’t a partisan stunt for “messaging victory.” It’s about saving the lives of Americans who will otherwise be unable to afford healthcare insurance.
Assuming the GOP will act in good faith to address this country’s problematic for-profit healthcare system is insanely naive or ignorant. I assume Gluesenkamp Perez stuck her head in the sand every time Trump said he wanted to kill ACA, and missed Sen. John McCain’s going against his party and Trump in 2017 to vote to protect the ACA.
John McCain is dead. There’s no maverick to save Gluesenkamp Perez’s butt when her constituents lose their homes to pay for their healthcare because she didn’t want to appear to be too partisan.
Primary all of them. There was NO valid reason to for any D to vote for this, especially considering the stuff snuck into the bill by GOP Senators (phone logs, etc.) and no D votes were needed to pass.
Maybe Pete Davidson can primary Suozzi, who it should be noted was beaten by a recently pardoned fraudster (‘Santos’) by whatever name he is using now. I don’t know if Davidson lives in that district, though the Article 1 requirement is residency in the state, not disrict.
Golden announced he’s not running for re-election. His seat is open. Technically speaking, he can’t be primaries but his seat will have a primary race.
The ones who could be primaried, anyhow. As for Golden, his stated reason for calling it quits was protecting his family from ongoing threats, but perhaps even then he was going to sell out.
I would note that the data shows a blue wave coming regardless and progressives are leading the way.
I have yet to see any concrete info about the so-called threats. Haven’t seen any info about police reports re threats.
Replying to Rayne: That’s what Golden said in his annoncement, but I haven’t seen police reports either.
Unfortunately, not surprised about this. In the book “Reckoning”, Mitt Romney was quoted as saying Trump mob threats of violence against families changed Republican senator’s impeachment votes. Nobody paid attention:
“One of the biggest revelations to me in my conversations with Romney was just how important the threat of political violence was to the psychology of elected Republicans today,” said Coppins, who recalled Romney telling him “story after story about Republican members of Congress, Republican senators, who at various points wanted to vote for impeachment —vote to convict Trump or vote to impeach Trump —and decided not to, not because they thought he was innocent, but because they were afraid for their family’s safety.
They were afraid of what Trump supporters might do to them or to their families.” That “raises a really uncomfortable question,” Coppins said, which is “how long can the American project last if elected officials from one of the major parties are making their political decisions based on fear of physical violence from their constituents?”
What’s really pissed me off is that neither party has clued into dealing effectively with an organized crime entity including their mob enforcers.
But I still want to know if the state and local police in Maine are dealing with the alleged threats to Golden.
Democrats didn’t like Golden. Republicans didn’t like Golden. With Golden dropping out, it has thrown a giant monkey into the wrench. Jordan Wood has now switched from a senate campaign and will go after Goldens seat. Matt Dunlap would be a good choice as well. But unless Troy Jackson drops his bid for the Blaine House, Paul LePlague will win the 2nd district, handily.
Jackson is a three time Maine state senate president and is from Allagash in northern Aroostook County. Jackson is the one democrat who could beat LePlague.
There is a Democrat running against Gluesenkamp-Perez right now. He’s raised ~$41K so far. A primary challenge from the left isn’t going to work because Perez is very nearly exactly as far left as one can be and reliably win this seat. Local Dems aren’t going to throw her out now and risk losing the seat in 2028.
So you’re saying throw in the towel and let a centrist have the seat at a time when Dems elsewhere are winning R districts. Just let Gleusenkamp Perez sabotage the rest of the Democratic Party next time she thinks the subject is too partisan.
Just let her get away with forcing ACA marketplace users in her district and the rest of the country regardless of their party affiliation to go bankrupt or go without healthcare without any accountability.
*smh*
Uh, yeah. We should let a centrist have a center-right district. Yes, someone (a little bit) to the left could maybe win in 2026 given the expected environment for that year. And then they’d lose in 2028. I would far rather have a reliable vote for a Democratic speaker even if she votes with Dems half of the rest of the time. Because the alternative in 2 years is a reliable vote for the Republican speaker and who will vote with the Republicans 99%+ of the time. 50% plus a Democratic speaker is better than 0% and a Republican.
Reply to boatgeek
November 13, 2025 at 4:27 pm
Looking forward to explaining this perspective to +20 million people struggling to make ends meet. “You see, we have to go with this centrist’s opinion because 2028…”
Maybe they’ll just die and decrease the surplus population and they won’t have to concern themselves with understanding this flimsy electoral excuse for math.
@Rayne If you’d rather have insurrectionist Joe Kent in Congress than Perez, I can’t help you. If you were talking about WA-07 in Seattle or any of the inner-ring suburban seats, I’d feel differently running a progressive challenge. I’d love to see a progressive challenge to Maria Cantwell too. But if we’re talking about a reddish seat, I’ll take the centrist Democrat every day over a Republican.
I’m sorry she offends you with a lack of purity, but that’s what it takes to win and hold this seat.
Reply to boatgeek
November 13, 2025 at 6:13 pm
I see you’re going to just diss the trend Charles Gaba has documented. Whatev. We’re in this mess in no small part because Dems in centrist districts have been chickenshit to run on Democratic values and instead kiss GOP ass.
The first problem in WA is our bullshit “bipartisan” redistricting commission process; which you would think would be the Right Thing except that it makes the fatal mistake of having the commission be chosen by the legislature, which then means that the priority is incumbent protection for *both* parties, so they draw a map with 10 safe seats for whoever happened to be holding them at the time of the census. And because WA-03 was held by a Republican in 2020, the new WA-03 was specifically designed as Republican district very hard to have a Democrat win at all while a whole lot of votes are wasted giving Adam Smith (WA-09) and Rick Larson (WA-02) totally safe seats that they don’t deserve (speaking of people who need to be primaried but won’t be).
I’d love it if we could do what CA did, but I’m pretty sure that won’t fly here. The Grange hates political parties and would scream bloody murder. And I have no idea WTF The Grange is, but they exist and every time they sponsor an initiative to fuck over the parties it wins by huge margins because The Grange — which brings us to the 2nd problem:
Due to a Grange-sponsored initiative, WA state does not actually HAVE a primary. We have this Louisiana-style “jungle primary” bullshit in which candidates choose their own party designations regardless of what the parties themselves actually say, and whichever two get the most votes in August go up against each other in November. The WSDP could completely disown Gluesenkamp, throw all of their support to somebody else and she’d STILL be able to put “Prefers Democratic Party” next to her name, and people would vote for her thinking she’s a Democrat. Meanwhile, the Republicans get to vote in the August election, too, meaning they also get a say in which “Democrat” they want to run against.
Well, here I am, the skunk at the picnic. I also was disappointed when I got up and heard the news first thing in the morning this week, but then I read Tim Kaine’s statement:
“I have long said that to earn my vote, we need to be on a path toward fixing Republicans’ health care mess and to protect the federal workforce.
“This deal guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Republicans weren’t willing to do. Lawmakers know their constituents expect them to vote for it, and if they don’t, they could very well be replaced at the ballot box by someone who will.
“This legislation will protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay, as required by a law I got passed in 2019. That’s a critical step that will help federal employees and all Americans who rely on government services. I’ll keep working towards a long-term government spending plan that includes critical priorities to support Virginians and funding for Virginia community projects.”
As I thought about it, and listened to the sniveling Johnson lying every time he opened his mouth when he obviously had just gotten off the phone with his “leader” I realized that they don’t care about health care, they don’t care about the shut-down, and in fact the more pain the better for all but their favorite groups.
Ending the shut-down isn’t a partisan stunt, nor is it a plan in pursuit of the messaging win. Neither was it working, but it was causing enormous pain across the board. Yes, John McCain is dead, but there isn’t anyone lined up to take his place either.
Sometimes good people disagree, and I do believe that this was a very difficult decision for all of these Congress critters. In fact, the agreement they got to reinstate all those that trump fired during this time, and reimburse everyone also are important. The Epstein name is back big time, and I’m not sorry about that.
The sneaky $500,000 bonus that the GOPers stuck in will not fly, I hope, but it remains as testament to their dishonesty.
I think the GOPers are afraid of what will happen about health care due to their pure rotten-ness, and I hope they are cowed into fixing the pathological abscess that they joyfully implanted into the Big Ugly Bill.
I can’t imagine that dragging out the shut-down any longer would have helped. I definitely would love to prevent such an ignorant way to solve a financial disagreement ever again.
“This deal guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits…”
They need to show the public the deal, in writing. Right now Americans relying on ACA marketplace have nothing to go on but the pricing they’ve received in writing from insurers for next year’s coverage.
ADDER: I haven’t trusted Tim Kaine after his stint as DNC chair. He killed the OFA outreach and the 50-state strategy. Just brilliant.
Hello, CVilleDem, from a Crozet Dem. This was my experience exactly. Very upset with Tim Kaine, then read his explanation. What motivated him here was the immediate suffering of his constituents, so many of whom are federal workers. And yes, that is nothing compared to the future suffering of those who lose their health insurance, and I don’t trust Johnson and Thune as far as I could spit, but on reflection I think continuing the shutdown would have meant diminishing returns. The fact that the Epstein stuff really hit the fan just after the shutdown ended means that the Dems now (temporarily) have the upper hand. If only they will use it.
Finishing Glues’n’clamps Barrettes’ thought:
…that are compelled to raise their prices by virtue of the heartless GOP intransigence I’m enabling with this vote.”
It would be irresponsible not to remember that the entire House Democratic leadership and DCCC came out in favor of the conservative, corrupt, anti-abortion Cuellar when he was challenged from the left.
And yes, that includes Pelosi.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-henry-cuellar/
The district at the time was eminently winnable by a progressive,
going for Biden over Trump, 53-46% in 2020, and Beto O’Rourke over Greg Abbott, 52-46% in 2022.
I don’t know what the internal math told the DCCC. IIRC a more progressive candidate didn’t win a primary across two different terms.
The calculus isn’t the same now.
Gluesenkamp-Perez is absolutely not a surprise to have voted for the funding bill. As mentioned above, she’s in an R+2 district. Yes, she won by 4-6 points in the last two elections, but she was also running against insurrectionist Joe Kent who was a hair too MAGA even for this district. Next year, she’s running against a longtime state senator who has enough of a veneer or reasonableness that she’s going to have a tough fight. Maybe not in a blue wave year, but the election afterwards certainly. Someone to the left of Perez is not going to hold that seat long term. I’d much rather have her in the seat sometimes crossing the aisle than a Republican.
The House vote was not about ending the shutdown; it was a vote on a new CR passed by the Senate. No Democratic votes for it were required for the government to re-open. Why would any Democrat who wasn’t moved by some reflexive cravenness cast a vote to screw their constituents? There is nothing in that CR for the people except government turning its back on them. Oh, I forgot: and retribution. Maybe they didn’t want to be seen opposing that. Might have made some MAGA folks mad.
In what way was passage of the CR not a vote to end the shutdown? Passage of the CR through Congress is precisely what ended the shutdown.
But OK, let’s answer your question. Because Perez is trying to stay elected in an R+2 district. She absolutely votes with the Republicans on some issues so that she can say that she’s independent of the Democratic leadership when she goes back home to campaign. And you hit the nail exactly on the head–none of these D votes were needed, so it’s a messaging thing. And honestly, the carping about her vote here is probably valuable to her when it’s time to campaign for the red-leaning independents. “I’m not beholden to the left wing. Look at how much they beat me up when I voted to re-open the government.” That is votes in the bank for her next November.
“so it’s a messaging thing”
And who sent a fucking message? -__-
I don’t have any issue about primarying any of these congresspeople but I do wonder whether the implied assumption that a further holdout would have forced the Repubs to cave on ACA subsidies was never likely. Obviously we cannot run counterfactuals but the notion that Trump would give in on bolstering Obamacare seems a bit fanciful. I think the more plausible scenario was that in the next two weeks before Thanksgiving, Trump would lean on Thune to claim some obscure rule exemption from the filibuster and force the govt open and claim credit for it. Then the Dems would have successfully stolen defeat from the jaws of (modest but measurable in terms of Trump’s declining approval ratings) victory.
I don’t want to give the Dems too much credit but they certainly saw ending the filibuster as one scenario that would end the stand off. It was one of their talking points. That the GOP could end the shut down at any point if they just put the filibuster up for a vote.
But then that puts the onus of the CR and not funding the ACA subsidies squarely on the GOP. And you don’t get the spectacle of 8 Dems caving 5 days after an historic off year election night. You don’t get the optics of the 8 Dems caving to Walmart and/or the airline industry.
Well, I guess the only good thing that might come from this is that a large herd of MAGAts are now going to encounter bitter reality on the road to the mid-terms and finally realise that Trump’s oft-claimed intent to “improve” health care was a steaming load of old baloney. (Even though anyone who was paying even minimal attention knew that from the get-go, although unfortunately a lot of innocent working stiffs are going to suffer along with the informationally-vacuous.)
The herd you speak of will never, ever realize anything other than Trump is awesome, and right all the time, and its all Biden’s fault, and whatever it is, and will unnecessarily go to their graves without proper health care believing this
Trump’s idea of “improving healthcare” is to ensure profitability to whichever insurers cross his palm with silver, and that profitability will likely come at the expense of the most marginalized Americans.
If a system is what it does per Stafford Beer’s aphoris, then Trump is a grifter and not effective at governance. He’s not even been effective at running businesses; why should anyone trust him on healthcare?
People still become Nazis even though Hitler died in a bunker like a coward.
I grew up with people who became maga. They were ALWAYS magats, long before the name was coined.
You are deeply wrong to believe that more than a few will be ‘convinced’.
The only stategy for dealing with these people is containment. You will not convert them to new ideas. You must simply make it not worth their while to act out their hatred.
And be prepared to spend the rest of your life doing this, if that’s your mission.
I read that 75% of the people who receive ACA tax credits live in red states. Not sure exactly why, but a lot of those are rural states, so farm families where there is not a spouse with an off farm job providing health insurance, but also small businesses. Even worse, these are people who are much more likely to die just getting to a hospital in emergency situations due to distance and struggling rural ambulance services.
(deploying the Guard to provide EMS services in rural areas would be a damn sight more useful than having them follow around ICE agents.)
And a lot of farmers are also recipients, so they are getting a double whammy. This all multiplies in rural communities.
Aren’t 25% of active military on food stamps? Aren’t the majority of military bases also in Red States? Drumpf et al sure do love to screw over the poors (sic) who continually support this kind of abuse. When will it ever end and they’ll return to sanity? Is it when Bartlett is at the top of ticket running against Gov. Ritchie (sp?)?
I sympathize with the anti-primary peoples’ argument that a bad Democrat is better than a Republican in a purple district. But this is still consistent with waging a lively primary campaign from the left. If the challenger loses badly, nothing has changed for the worse. If the challenger loses well, the incumbent will start to worry about their left flank in the future. The only bad result is a challenger winning the primary and losing the general in a close election. And even this will encourage surviving incumbents to consider their left flank.
Jesus, there is no reason for a healthy person to buy that insurance. If you self-insured by putting *half* those premiums in the bank, you’d likely come out ahead.
Yes, I know that they likely can’t afford to put that kind of money aside — but still.
One of the problems with your idea is that THEY DON’T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY.
The other is that one serious problem can wipe out savings in no time. My daughter had a baby 2 years ago. He was having some breathing issues and went into PICU for 3 days. This was in NYC, so more expensive than some, but the bill (paid for by insurance) was $125,000!
Think about it. What I don’t get is why no one seems to have ever thought of having a serious Think Tank of representatives from the 32 countries that are also advanced countries – and have Universal Health Care – to sit in a room and tell us how they do it, and how we also might be able to.
Of course they don’t have Citizens United –>the first thing to get rid of.
Imagine spending billions on people instead of on advertising and paying off lobbyists to buy a governmental seat!
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “CVILLEDEM” triggering auto-moderation; letter case and spaces matter. It has been edited to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
Even when I was working, I didn’t have that kind of money in the bank. My paycheck wasn’t *that* big – remember the median pay is something like 50K per year, and that’s $2500 a month.
And then what happens when one suddenly has an emergency like a heart attack? Or needs surgery urgently for something like cancer?
What if you’ve only been able to save 5K and the bill is 20K? The last time I had to have surgery (before I inconveniently hemorrhaged again), the hospital demanded payment in full of the amount my insurer hadn’t preapproved before they’d admit me. Nothing like gambling one won’t bleed out before they come up with the other 15K.
Exactly my point. That is what makes universal health care the only option. Why is it even a question anymore?
Thanks, Rayne, this may be the most important issue that seems to never get solved.
#tu
ND State Insurance Commissioner, who is a Republican, was sounding alarms about the tax credits well before the shutdown in state media. He said there was no time to waste with the expiration and enrollment periods both coming soon. He warned of a death spiral caused by people dropping out of the marketplace, causing premiums for those remaining–who for medical reasons HAVE NO CHOICE but to stay in–causing even more people to drop out causing premiums to go up.
This is a direct effect, but there are other indirect effects, such as payments made by insurers to help adjust risks across the industry, which they have to recoup somehow.
Health insurance companies are profitable. Maybe they need to be regulated like public utilities: a maximum level of profits, after which they have to lower rates.
I am not sure I understand how getting Trump to kill the filibuster is any kind of goal? Firstly, Thune would have invented some obscure senate rule where, like if the shutdown goes on for 50 days, there is an emergency exception, so they could do another carve out and argue they didn’t kill it. And, if the Dems want to kill it, they could do it themselves if and when they retake the Senate.
I think the real problem isn’t the cave – 43 days is a lot longer than I’d have expected of these folks- it’s the messaging around it. Having Angus King go on tv to call Trump his daddy is the problem. Why not say, “we gave the Repubs a chance to be the hero, they refused, so let’s take this healthcare issue to the people with the battle lines clearly drawn”.
#tu
Robert Byrd is no longer with us, but I don’t think you get to invent some obscure Senate rule that does not exist. Trump of course has no concept of broad effects of a decision or the fact that this would end the filibuster for this type of action (not sure if that means CRs or appropriations bills period) forever, vacating the rule.
As I understand it, the cloture rules didn’t exist before the early 1900s or so, but at least then Senators could do a speaking filibuster or attempt to kill each other on the Senate floor.
Who says it doesn’t exist? It is right beside the rule that says you don’t vote on SCOTUS nominees in election years, unless there’s a harvest moon or something.
That seems to be what is happening.