There They Go Again— Republicans Aiming For Government Shutdown After The Elections

Fred Upton voted to shut down the government once-- and he plans to do it again, right after the midterms

There are virtually no Republican-held districts outside of the former slave-holding states where shutting down the government polls well. District after district in crucial Republican areas in the Northeast, Midwest, and far West have polls publicly available showing that the Republican incumbents would lose if they advocated shutting down the government as an anti-Obamacare tactic. And yet they all have— and are planning to do it again. Let’s look at 4 vulnerable Republican incumbents— none of whom the DCCC is targeting— Dave Reichert in Washington, Fred Upton in Michigan, David Joyce in Ohio, and Paul Ryan clone Sean Duffy in Wisconsin. Keep in mind that all 4 voted for the government shutdown last time.

In a series of surveys, PPP asked voters this question: “Do you support or oppose Congress shutting down major activities of the federal government as a way to stop the health care law from being put into place?” These were the responses in the 4 districts:

• WA-08 (Reichert)- support- 28%, oppose 61%
• MI-06 (Upton)- support- 27%, oppose 69%
• OH-14 (Joyce)- support- 35%, oppose- 59%
• WI-07 (Duffy)- support- 35%, oppose- 59%

A follow-up question was “Now that you know your congressman supported the government shutdown, I’ll ask you one more time: If the election for Congress were held today, would you vote for re-elect him, or would you vote for his Democratic opponent? Let’s look at the results— all in districts Steve Israel has vigorously taken off the table and insisted that the DCCC will not contest in any way:

• WA-08- Reichert 40%, Democratic opponent (Jason Ritchie) 52%
• MI-06- Upton 36%, Democratic opponent (Paul Clements) 56%
• OH-14- Joyce 44%, Democratic opponent (Michael Wager) 47%
• WI-07- Duffy 45%, Democratic opponent (Kelly Westlund) 49%

Pelosi should have called Israel in for a talk the day after these poll results were made public and asked for his resignation. Instead she allowed the problem to fester and metastasize to the point where the goal of winning back 17 seats from the Republicans has turned into a goal of holding the GOP down to gains in the single digits.

Yesterday Sahil Kapur at TPM helped clarify how the Republican Party plans for their next government shutdown— right after the midterm elections— is coming together:

Republican senators are calling on House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to attach spending limits to an Obamacare program in a bill that must pass in the lame-duck session to keep the federal government open.

The strategy carries echoes of the 2013 government shutdown fight waged by the GOP over defunding Obamacare, although with smaller ambitions this time.

Fourteen conservative senators, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), wrote a letter to Boehner on Wednesday calling on him to use the continuing resolution— which must be enacted by Dec. 11 to avert a shutdown— to prohibit "unappropriated and unauthorized funds" under a market stability mechanism in Obamacare known as risk corridors. The program collects funds from insurers who enroll healthier patients and pays insurers who enroll sicker patients.

"As you know, the current CR will expire on December 11, 2014. Congress will undoubtedly have its feet held to the fire by the American people to pass another stop-gap appropriations bill avoiding a government shutdown," the senators wrote to Boehner. "The American people expect us, as Members of Congress, to fulfill our Oath of Office and defend the Constitution. Therefore, we must act to protect Congress' power of the purse and prohibit the Obama administration from dispersing unlawful risk corridor payments providing for an Obamacare taxpayer bailout."

The other 13 signatories were Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Mike Lee (R-UT), David Vitter (R-LA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Deb Fischer (R-NE), John McCain (R-AZ), John Boozman (R-AR), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Tom Coburn (R-OK).

The Republicans can’t accomplish their goal in the Senate because of the Democratic firewall against their tyranny, but if Boehner has enough right-wing zombies in the House— he does and, thanks to Steve Israel, will again— he can force another shutdown. Notice on that list of senatorial shutdown proponents, only one, Pat Roberts, is facing reelection. He’s headed for defeat next month but don’t expect the Beltway corporate media to blame that defeat on his support for a government shutdown. If you’d like to help the Democrats running against the 4 GOP House shutdown proponents we talked about above, all 4 are on this page.