Sen John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, is open to "nuking" the filibuater to re-ooen the federal government. He has broken with his party by consistently voting to advance these bills alongside Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Angus King (I-ME).
On Tuesday —the 21st day of the shutdown—Fetterman publicly urged Republicans to invoke the "nuclear option" (a Senate rules change to lower the filibuster threshold for this specific purpose to a simple majority of 51 votes). He views this as a pragmatic move to prioritize reopening the government over partisan gridlock, emphasizing the humanitarian impact on programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which serves 2 million Pennsylvanians and is at risk of exhausting funds. He also highlighted unpaid federal workers, including Capitol Police, and military personnel.
Speaking to reporters outside the Senate chamber, Fetterman said:
- "There are no winners here. It’s not getting better every day here. People are going to start to get really hungry, and I’ve been fully, fully committed to fund SNAP, open up the government. [...] This is just bad political theater. Open it up."
- On supporting the nuclear option/carve-out for funding bills: "Carve it out for that, absolutely. [...] I support it because it makes it more difficult to shut the government down in the future, and that’s where it’s entirely appropriate."
- Criticizing Democratic hypocrisy on the filibuster (noting most Democrats campaigned to eliminate or carve out exceptions to it in 2022 for voting rights): "We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it. [...] I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it."