Jeffries’ near-unified opposition
Plus: A preview of the House Democrats’ policy retreat and a look at the legacy of the American Rescue Plan four years later.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! First things first: Senate Democrats now have a choice: Swallow the funding bill House Republicans passed this afternoon to keep the lights on (more on that below) or watch the government shutdown for the first time since Trump 1.0. … For COURIER, I wrote about how House Democrats leveraged influencers to amplify their anti-Donald Trump message during his joint address last week. … Two House Democrats from Maryland introduced legislation to protect federal workers in response to the more than 30,000 federal employees who have been laid off or fired as of late last month and the approximately 75,000 federal workers accepted “deferred-resignation” deals offered by the administration as part of its efforts to reduce federal expenditures and the size of the federal workforce. … A separate group of Black House Democrats reintroduced the CROWN Act, a bill prohibiting discrimination based on race-related hair textures and styles in workplaces and schools. … Keep reading for what else is worth knowing from the Hill today before you call it a night—straight from my notebook to your inbox.
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Jeffries’ near-unified opposition
The House passed a government funding bill along party lines ahead of Friday’s deadline, with the Senate expected to follow suit later this week.
House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the Republican-backed measure, citing cuts to domestic programs and the lack of guardrails to check executive overreach—particularly at the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
The final vote was 217–213. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the lone Republican to vote against the bill, while Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) was the only Democrat to support it.
Allow me to explain: For the first time since losing the House in 2023, Democrats withheld their votes on a government funding package—legislation typically carried by the party in power.
The opposition underscored House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)’s strategy of pairing legislative resistance with legal challenges and grassroots activism to push back against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)’s alignment with President Trump’s agenda.
With a shutdown looming Saturday morning, the vote also gave a frustrated Democratic base a clear example of the party drawing a hard line against what it sees as unchecked Republican rule.
What they’re saying: “It should not surprise anyone that House Republicans continue to bend the knee to Donald Trump and their billionaire puppet master, Elon Musk,” Jeffries told reporters after the vote. “But the American people will have an opportunity to speak, and when they do next November, it will not be pretty for the MAGA extremists.”
Not so fast: House Republicans insisted Democrats should have backed the bill, calling it a “clean” continuing resolution—a temporary measure to extend government funding at current levels.
But a true clean CR contains no policy changes, funding shifts, or controversial riders—it simply keeps existing spending in place.
CRs typically buy time for budget negotiations, but Democrats argue this version was drafted without their input, slashed domestic programs, and boosted defense spending.
Notably, some of the GOP’s most hardline members—who have opposed past CRs for failing to impose cuts—rallied behind this bill, reinforcing Democratic claims that it was far from neutral.
“It’s not a clean CR,” a House Democrat texted me. “It’s a Republican omnibus bill. And it’s gaslighting at its worst.”
“If it was a clean CR, it’d be a couple pages,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told me this morning. “This is 99 pages where they want to cut vital programs affecting our communities.”
In the know: Jeffries first signaled his opposition last Thursday after Johnson confirmed plans to proceed with the bill.
After the bill text dropped Saturday, Jeffries and his leadership team issued a statement rejecting it.
When members returned to Washington on Monday, House Democrats doubled down.
Jeffries reaffirmed his stance this morning before heading into a closed-door caucus meeting.
Looking ahead: Congress is in recess next week. When lawmakers return, House Republicans will shift to drafting full-year funding bills to enshrine Trump’s domestic agenda—including an extension of his 2017 tax cuts—without Democratic support.
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House Dems’ prep for policy retreat
House Democrats are heading to Northern Virginia for their annual policy retreat to regroup after their 2024 losses, strategize against Trump 2.0, and chart a path back to the majority.
In her own words: Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) said she wasn’t sure she’d stay for the full retreat due to commitments back home but emphasized the value of members coming together.
“I think it’s important to do the issues,” she told me. “But it’s just as important to be together.”
Allow me to explain: The retreat comes as House Democrats navigate life in the political wilderness.
After the 2024 election, Democrats found themselves on the losing side of key policy battles over immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and inflation.
Since returning to office, Trump has flooded the executive branch with culture war-driven executive orders and destabilized markets with aggressive tariffs. Critics say Democrats were caught flat-footed in responding to the initial onslaught.
Tensions are still high among House Democrats frustrated by how some members handled Trump’s first joint address. Protests—including walkouts and sign-waving—were instantly mocked online, overshadowing the party’s economic message despite leadership’s warnings not to become the story.
“The protests were unorganized, uncoordinated, not strategic, and did not meet the moment,” one House Democrat told me, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The caucus needs to have a lot of family conversations. I hope the issues conference is the forum for us to have them.”
Not so fast: Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, rejected the idea of internal party strife.
“There were a lot of moving parts,” he said of the night’s events. “Most people who were talking about it weren’t in those rooms, so they don’t really know what the plan was.”
Carter argued that Democrats have always had strong internal debates but remain united.
“We are a Democratic Party that has very strong opinions, very strong positions,” he said. “But we do follow our leader, and we are following Hakeem Jeffries. Don’t let anybody fool you with the notion and the smoke screen trying to suggest we’re divided.”
In the know: Coincidentally, the theme of this year’s retreat is United to Win.
“We’re here for the American people, and in order to stop pain, in order to stop cuts from happening, we need to win,” Aguilar told me. “So that’s what United to Win means for us: Winning the day, winning the week, winning the year to protect everyday Americans and the services that are so important to them.”
Speakers at the retreat include a slate of prominent Democrats, such as Governors Andy Beshear (Ky.), Josh Shapiro (Pa.), and Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), along with former U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stacey Dixon. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville and Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer are also on the lineup, as are AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
Democratic leaders and key caucuses will hold a series of press conferences over the next two days, and I’ll be there to bring you the biggest takeaways.
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Dems reflect on ARP’s legacy
Five years ago, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. A year later, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP)—a cornerstone of his legislative record.
Allow me to explain: The bill, which included stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, an expanded Child Tax Credit, state and local aid, funding for vaccine distribution, and support for struggling small businesses, was the first major legislation enacted by Hill Democrats and the Biden administration under their 2021 governing trifecta. Every congressional Republican opposed it.
Democrats would later pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 on a party-line vote.
Now, Republicans hold unified government control and are working to pass their legislative priorities without Democratic support.
But while Democrats passed the ARP just 50 days into Biden’s presidency, Hill Republicans have yet to coalesce around a budget resolution to unlock the legislative vehicle they need to avoid a Democratic filibuster.
What they are saying: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus at the time, told me the ARP demonstrated the scale of government’s ability to affect change and lift the nation out of despair.
“All the things we were able to put in there were transformative,” she said. “Without it, more people would have died, more would have been homeless, more would have been hungry—more kids would not have survived.”
The ARP was made possible by the special election victories of Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in January 2021.
“When Sen. Warnock and I were elected, thousands were dying every day from COVID-19, and unemployment was in the double digits. The country and the world were in deep crisis,” Ossoff told me. “Those victories in Georgia unlocked not just the recovery from COVID, but also the bipartisan infrastructure law, the PACT Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and a range of historic legislative achievements.”
Not so fast: The ARP’s legacy is complicated.
On one hand, many of its provisions provided immediate relief to millions of Americans. For instance, the Child Tax Credit expansion lifted millions of children out of poverty, while direct payments and unemployment benefits stabilized household finances during a turbulent period.
The ARP also played a key role in accelerating COVID-19 vaccine distribution, contributing to declining case numbers and the broader reopening of the economy.
However, as the economy showed signs of recovery in 2021, inflation became a growing concern, particularly during supply chain disruptions and rising demand as businesses reopened.
Critics argue that the ARP’s size exacerbated these inflationary pressures. By the time the 2022 midterms rolled around, inflation had become a dominant issue, with Republicans blaming the ARP for worsening the problem.
Final thoughts: Despite Republican opposition, the ARP was a critical element of Biden’s plan to provide immediate relief to individuals, businesses, and healthcare systems while accelerating the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
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