The Quiet Shutdown Is Already Underway
Many Congress-watchers we admire weighed in on the strategery of Senate Democrats declining to support a Republican-drafted Continuing Resolution, which would result in a government shutdown. We are in strong agreement with their arguments that shutdowns are unwinnable politically, even as Democrats’ core constituents demand their representatives “do something.” This specific shutdown, if it targets merely restoring health insurance subsidies or lacks any endgame strategy, has high potential for political blowback and creating distraction from cascading the political and real-world damage of Trumpist policies. Some of these analysts see this scenario as being about managing Democratic internal factions and feels like a repeat of the intraparty battles that led to the Obama-era shutdown antics forced upon Speaker John Boehner by asymmetric factional power.
But it isn’t 2013. Other commentators have framed the shutdown as a decision to directly confront the abnormality of the Trump regime to fend off becoming a competitive authoritarian state. Actors seeing the field through the lens of “normal” politics of the pre-Trump system, they argue, are missing how critical it is to fight now to forestall complete democratic collapse. Instead of taking hostages to restore a few percentage points on health care subsidies, they think Democratic leadership should take a bigger swing to curtail presidential power through what Ezra Klein dubs “an attentional event.” There is an undeniable logic to the description of the problem, even if it is unclear how focusing public attention on Trump's authoritarianism will directly yield a solution.
It would be reasonable to tie the two together: that Trump's crashing of the economy, particularly rising inflation and unemployment, is the result of the Administration’s preposterous reading of presidential emergency powers, its circumvention of Congress, and its impact on the federal workforce. Democratic decline and the economic decline are inextricably connected.
Indeed, the government is already in a shutdown through staff cuts, rescissions, impoundments, the suspension of services, and the "cancellation" of grants by the White House. Appropriated money is not flowing to government functions Congress has lawfully funded. Democratic appropriators estimate that shutdown to total $410 billion. “Team Abnormal” is right about the broader situation, but as Don Moynahan points out, the slide toward authoritarianism they fear is very much in progress.
The FY2026 appropriations bills could be the official start of the interregnum to (hopefully) the next democratic system if Senate Democrats use their leverage with precision. The Senate has already passed the Agriculture, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Legislative branch bills. There's discussion of pairing these three bills with a very short term Continuing Resolution – perhaps through November – for the remaining nine appropriations bills. It's notable that all three were approved in the Senate on a bipartisan basis. Ratcheting a win for team Democracy and forcing team Autocracy back to the bargaining table in 60 days is a plausible plan with an achievable aim. The House should be provided the choice of largely accepting the Senate's bills as is or shutting down the government. (House Republicans just named conferees for the three bills.) Passage of the Senate's Legislative branch bill in particular would inoculate Congress against some of the craziness coming from Trump's OMB.
But Democrats should insist on additions to the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill to curtail OMB impoundments and rescissions and strengthen rule-of-law enforcement in the White House. We suggested 10 such provisions in February heading into the last funding battle, including limiting presidential emergency declaration powers, protecting congressional capacity to hold the Executive branch accountable, and shielding inspectors general from politically-motivated removal. Many of these proposals already have bipartisan support, and as we’ve been tracking, a number of Senate Republicans are unhappy about rescission abuse. They rightly note that it is impossible to negotiate over appropriations when the Executive branch says it can simply ignore the law, which is why the laws Congress enacts must be enforceable agreements.
Appropriators should defund any Executive branch efforts to promulgate regulations, issue guidance, or argue in court to advance pocket rescissions, impoundment, unitary executive theory, among others. In addition, standing should be provided to other political players to pursue violations in court in a fast-tracked process.
One critical provision is changing the appointment process for the leaders of the Government Accountability Office, Library of Congress, and Government Printing Office. Current law allows the President to nominate leaders (subject to Senate confirmation) even though these agencies are within the Legislative branch. Congress already clawed back the power to appoint the Architect of the Capitol via a bicameral commission. They should do the same thing here, especially because Comptroller General Gene Dodaro’s term ends in December.
There’s one last grim piece of incentive: funding for members’ security, which was a high priority even before the murder of Charlie Kirk. Members expressed interest in more funding for personal security on top of the pilot program Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled in July, which provided $20,000 in home security per member through FY 2025. There's also the $900 million request from the Capitol Police and likely billions in unfunded infrastructure fixes necessary to protect, secure, and repair the Capitol complex.
Much of this depends on Senator Schumer (or whomever negotiates on behalf of Senate Democrats). If Schumer merely is going through the motions to manage his coalition and avoid defenestration, he will eventually declare victory and settle for a consolation prize that matters little in the battle for democracy. If he is serious about withholding Senate Democratic votes in return for laws that reflect the interests of elected Democrats and those Republicans who still believe that Congress should matter, he may empower an eventual political settlement where Congress becomes more able to assert itself. If the Trump regime decides to use the shutdown to claim more power for itself, it will merely lift off the veil to what they are already doing. That, in turn, would give rise to further opposition and accelerate the clash. When confronting an authoritarian regime, it is best to do so before it has consolidated power.
A full-year mini-bus that strengthens Congress combined with a short term CR for the rest of government is a reasonable place to start to build a pro-democracy coalition in support of Congressional primacy. In the absence of a pro-Democracy deal, I can see no other reason why Democrats should be willing to come to the table.
POWER OF THE PURSE
GAO notified Congress on Friday that 15 rescissions announced by the White House on August 28 were not in compliance with the Impoundment Control Act because nothing in the ICA’s “legislative history, Supreme Court case law and the overarching constitutional framework, allowed for them.” The rescissions cancelled nearly $5 billion in State Department foreign aid programs.
Rep. Brendan Boyle has introduced a sweeping bill to protect Congress's central role in funding decisions, increase Executive branch transparency, and add teeth to the Impoundment Control Act. Read the section-by-section analysis.
MODERNIZATION
One of the most technically complex recommendations of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress called for the development of an anonymized system that could allow offices to share and aggregate casework data so that systemic problems in agencies or common issue trends could be identified. The House Digital Service announced last week the public release of its first taxonomy for its version of such a tool, under development as “CaseCompass.” Supported by a member staff working group formed last year, HDS developed the taxonomy to provide common identifiers to structure casework data, which was a complicated process given differences in how offices tag and code casework files. The taxonomy can be downloaded and viewed here, and HDS welcomes feedback.
Wednesday is the Congressional Hackathon 7.0. It's not too late to RSVP.
RULES
It doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that members of Congress can’t just do things. We were impressed when a bipartisan group of House members on the Rules Committee last week voted to advance an amendment to the NDAA repealing the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations of the Use of Military Force against Iraq. House leadership tried to strip out the amendment, but five Republicans supported it when raised by Democrats. The House approved the NDAA bill with the repeal amendments in place on Wednesday.
Going nuclear. The Senate voted Thursday 53-45 to "change" chamber rules to allow en bloc confirmation of lower-level Executive branch positions, including ambassadorships. The rule does not apply to leadership-level agency positions or judicial appointments. According to Politico, the rules changes still need to be finalized next week. Remember, there's no such thing as a limited nuclear war.
ODDS & ENDS
House staff salaries. The average salaries for House staff are down by $3,424 compared to 2024 according to a new analysis from HillClimbers. In addition, turnover in House offices is at 36%, with one-third of staffers moving on from their jobs since the start of 2025.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton is the focus of another devastating profile, this time from the New York Times, on her decline and apparent inability to fully serve as a member of Congress. We are becoming increasingly convinced there should be an age limit for members of Congress, perhaps at 75. Rep. Holmes Norton is 88 and currently seeking reelection. We acknowledge that voters are the best judge of who should serve. However, having seen how the press are generally reluctant to report incapacity and how staff and political allies prefer the status quo ante even when a member is incapacitated, there should be a firm limit.
Congressional insecurity. The FY26 House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations committee report has notable language directed to the Justice Department concerning the frequency and efficacy of prosecutions of individuals who make threats against members of Congress. It compares the context of 9,474 concerning communications against Members versus a mere eight convictions nationwide in 2024. "To address the existing lack of prosecutorial capacity to investigate and prosecute these threats, the [Justice] Department … is directed to coordinate closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office in each of the 94 Federal districts."
We've been beating the drum on how to protect members of Congress and their staff for a long time. First, the number 9,474 should be contextualized in terms of how many communicates were investigated, resulted in a prosecution, and resulted in a conviction. Second,
Constituent disservices. The Social Security office that helps members of Congress assist constituents has shrunk from 50 employees to 3, according to GovExec. The office is responsible for constituent services, answering questions from Congressional staff, and providing technical assistance when drafting Social Security Legislation.
Copyright. Shira Perlmutter is once again the Register of Copyrights, per direction of a divided D.C. Circuit panel. The court granted her request for a preliminary injunction while she appeals the Trump administration's efforts to remove her from the job at the Library of Congress. As Bloomberg reports, "Perlmutter demonstrated that her 'unusual' and 'likely unlawful' firing constituted a 'genuinely extraordinary situation' that invoked separation of powers concerns, according to the opinion issued Wednesday by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."
Perlmutter serves as the principal advisor to Congress on national and international copyright matters, oversees the Copyright Office, and administers the nation's copyright system. Statutorily, only the Librarian of Congress can remove her. The Court therefore found that her removal was unlawful and that it was rooted in disagreements from the Trump Administration on the advice she was going to give to Congress.
Additionally, the court found that the president cannot appoint the acting Librarian of Congress because that person must be approved by the Senate because the position is not covered by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and her role is primarily Congress-facing.
Unsurprisingly, the dissenting voice came from Trump-appointed Justin Walker, whose arguments were based on unitary executive theory – i.e., that it is more harmful to the president to be unable to remove an executive officer than for them to be unable to perform their duty as actually defined by statute. It is notable the American Bar Association rated the now 43-year-old as "not qualified" in 2019 when he was first nominated to the district court only to describe him as "well qualified" in 2020 when nominated to the D.C. Circuit; he is known as a protege of Mitch McConnell. You can follow the court orders on RECAP; here is the order reinstating Perlmutter.
The First Branch Forecast is a production of the American Governance Institute. Chris Nehls is the primary author and Daniel Schuman is the editor.