Hakeem Jeffries vows House Dems won't support bill to reopen gov as Chuck Schumer attacked over Senate vote

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has declared that the Democrats in the House will not support the spending bill that advanced in the Senate this week, which has brought the government shutdown one step closer to an end. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has also been attacked for the Senate vote, which allowed  the bill supported largely by the GOP to go forward.

Jeffries appeared at a press conference where he spoke on the issue on Monday, and said that healthcare has gotten too expensive and "that's why Democrats have been waging this fight, and we'll continue to wage this fight, no matter what comes over to us from the United States Senate to the House of Representatives at some point this week."

"Our position as House Democrats has been crystal clear. We will sit down with any Republicans, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, in order to find a bipartisan path forward. But we're not down with their ‘my way or the highway’ approach to governance. That's failed the American people," he added.

Then citing the Democrat election wins on November 4 as evidence, "As House Democrats, we know we're on the right side of this fight, the right side of the American people, and we're not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people. And we're going to continue the fight to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. And if it doesn't happen this week, next week, this month, next month, then it's the fault of Donald Trump, House and Senate Republicans."

After several Democrats broke ranks to vote with the GOP over the weekend to advance the bill, progressives attacked Schumer over not holding the vote together. Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California wrote after the vote that Schumer "is no longer effective and should be replaced."

As the GOP and Democrats in the Senate have been in a stand-off over the last several weeks, Democrats have been pushing to extend the Covid-relief era subsidies in Obamacare which the Democrats themselves set the expiry for when they passed the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden. They have pushed for that policy to continue, as well as a policy to increase the amount of federal funds going to cover some healthcare expenses of illegal immigrants.

However, with Democrats being in the minority of the House and the bill from the GOP clearing the bar of the Senate, it is very unlikely that the Democrats will be able to keep the government shut down to negotiate more over the spending package.