House Dem leaders spurn Johnson’s funding plan
Plus: How two House Democrats from Alabama are defending a national monument from the DOGE treatment.
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House Dem leaders spurn Johnson’s funding plan
House Democratic leaders announced Saturday they would oppose Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) stopgap funding bill, citing deep cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and veterans’ benefits—leaving Johnson with little room for error as he scrambles to avert a shutdown before Friday night’s deadline.
“We are voting no,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement.
Allow me to explain: House GOP leaders released a 99-page proposal to fund the government through September and clear the decks for Republicans to focus on enacting President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
With a razor-thin two-vote margin and near-unified Democratic opposition, Johnson will have to lean on Trump to wrangle potential holdouts—just as the former president did last month when House Republicans passed their budget blueprint along party lines.
Trump publicly endorsed the funding proposal just hours after its release.
Democrats have supplied the majority of votes for all five short-term funding extensions since Johnson became speaker. Their outright rejection of the GOP plan marks a shift from their “adults-in-the-room” posture in past shutdown fights.
But this is the first budget battle under full GOP control of government following Trump’s reelection and the Republican takeover of the Senate last November.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget has since called for a federal funding freeze on congressionally approved programs. At the same time, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has aggressively pursued budget cuts, privatization, and agency rollbacks under the guise of government reform.
Progressive activists have aggressively pushed Democratic lawmakers to take a harder line on must-pass bills, framing it as a fight against Trump 2.0, DOGE, and the broader MAGA movement.
House Democrats are also arguing that if Republicans truly have a governing mandate, they should be able to fund the government without Democratic votes.
What they’re saying: The top two Democratic appropriators favored passing a short-term extension to allow more time for bipartisan negotiations on full-year funding bills.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.): “Congress—not Trump or Musk—should decide through careful bipartisan negotiations how to invest in our states and districts, and whether critical programs that support students, veterans, families, and patients get funded.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.): “By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire.”
Looking ahead: House Democrats will huddle behind closed doors Tuesday morning to discuss their strategy, Jeffries told reporters late last week.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are holding back until they see how the House vote shakes out. With at least seven Democratic votes needed to keep the government open, their leverage—and potential demands—remain unclear.
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AL Dems’ monuments defense
The only two Democrats in Alabama’s congressional delegation reiterated a demand on Saturday afternoon for the Trump administration to remove a civil rights landmark and national monument from a federal list of properties available for potential sale.
Reps. Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures called the inclusion of the Freedom Rides Museum on the General Services Administration list would erase a historic site that serves as a vital part of America’s shared history and struggle for justice.
The two members made their case with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) at the Greyhound bus station where Freedom Riders protesting segregation were attacked in 1961 by white supremacists.
What they’re saying: Sewell’s message to the Trump administration was simple: Alabama’s civil rights history is not for sale.
“What happened here at the Montgomery bus station is painful to remember,” Sewell added. “It’s difficult to learn about, but it is an important and necessary reminder that the price of freedom is not free.”
Figures: “If they can get rid of this building, then what is next? There are several historical civil rights markers and buildings across this country that we must preserve.”
Sewell, Figures, Jeffries and several other congressional Democrats were already in Alabama to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday when civil rights activists were brutally beaten while marching for voting rights in Selma.
“We are determined to channel that courage, channel that character, channel that conviction to both protect the gains that were made by the civil rights movement, as represented by the Freedom Rides Museum,” Jeffries said.
Allow me to explain: The press event followed a letter to the Trump administration after the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency published a list of over 440 federal properties—including the Freedom Rides Museum—identified for potential sale, aiming to reduce government spending and the federal workforce.
The GSA has revised its list due to the public outcry, reducing the number of properties from over 440 to 320 and eventually removing the entire list from its website for reassessment. But as of now, the status of the museum, which was designated a national monument in 2017 and encompasses almost six acres in Alabama, remains uncertain with no official confirmation regarding its removal from the potential sale list.
The Trump administration has initiated reviews of national monuments under a 1906 law to potentially reduce their sizes or rescind their statuses to promote energy development and reduce regulatory restrictions.
The debate over national monuments underscores the tension between fiscal policies and the imperative to preserve sites of profound historical and cultural significance.
Looking ahead: Sewell and Figures said they plan to introduce legislation that would prohibit future administrations from selling national monuments without congressional approval.
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