Stalemate

This week in Congress has obviously been all about one thing: the government

shutdown. A stalemate between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate

has resulted in a shutdown of all but the most essential federal government services. It

has led hundreds of thousands of citizens to be furloughed from their governmental

positions.. It seems, however, that neither side is willing to budge. The game of pointing

fingers continues on, Democrats versus Republicans, with the Democrats calling the

shutdown variations of the GOP Shutdown and the Republican Shutdown, and the

Republicans complaining about the stubbornness of the Democrats and calling it the

Obama Shutdown. Congresswoman Lowey fits into the Democratic mold of not wanting

to budge and blaming it on the Republicans. Indeed, her home page leads with the

banner “Beginning Tuesday, October 1, our federal government was shut down after

House Republicans refused to compromise on a spending bill….”

During the week, Lowey repeatedly voted “Nay” on several funding bills that

have passed through the House since the shutdown. She seems determined not to

pass any bills that fund only selected governmental functions or programs. As she

displayed last week, she seems to have an all-or-nothing mentality: either open the

government with a fair budget and no ridiculous provisions, or let the whole government

stay shut down. Lowey voted “Nay” on appropriating money to keep the Smithsonian,

National Gallery of Art and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum open. The vote was

virtually 100% percent along party lines, with just one single Republican voting “Nay.”

(https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h510?

utm_campaign=govtrack_email_update&utm_source=govtrack/

email_update&utm_medium=email.) Lowey also voted “Nay” for continuing to

appropriate funding for the National Institutes of Health for the 2014 fiscal year. Perhaps

most out of character, she voted “Nay” on a resolution to provide funding for special

supplemental nutrition programs for women, children and infants. These are items that

Lowey normally would be fully supportive of funding under other circumstances. She

thus finds her self in the odd position of voting against funding measures that in more

normal times she would be championing. But she is being a good Democratic soldier

and toeing the party line of all or nothing. But to a rank and file liberal Democrat like Nita

Lowey, it must truly feel like the world has turned upside down.

On Friday, October 4, Congresswoman Lowey, along with two other senior

Democratic House members (Chris Van Hollen and George Miller) heaved what some

are calling a long shot “Hail Mary” pass in an attempt to end the stalemate. The idea of

the plan is to pass a “clean” continuing resolution that would keep the government up

and running through November 14th, thus giving the House and Senate more time to

agree on a long term solution. 218 representatives would have to vote “yes” on the

measure to pass it – meaning at least 18 Republicans would need to vote for it, a highly

unlikely event in the current charged environment. The bill, entitled the Government

Shutdown Prevention Act would make sure that the government and governmental

organizations continued to run during a fiscal debate in Congress “by automatically

triggering a continuing resolution (CR) or short-term, stop-gap spending device” (http://

www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-house-clean-cr-discharge-petition-
boehner-pelosi-2013-10). It will be interesting to see what kind of behind the scenes

arm twisting will have to be done in order to get 18 Republicans to vote for what will no

doubt be portrayed as a Democratic plan to solve the seemingly intractable

Congressional stalemate.