Schumer becomes a lightning rod amid a raging party storm
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer gives a television interview, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 14, 2025. Credit: AP/Ben Curtis
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s role as the Democrats’ minority caucus leader makes him, institutionally, his party’s most powerful elected official. Last week, Schumer and several colleagues acceded to a temporary Republican budget bill aimed at keeping the federal government from shutting down through Sept. 30.
"Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to the brink of disaster," he said last Thursday, before the vote. "Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down tomorrow at midnight. I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, who rely on federal programs to feed their families, to access medical care, and stay financially afloat."
Schumer said the shutdown would be a "gift" for President Donald Trump. Trump would get the opportunity to cease agency operations across the nation. He could more rapidly decimate programs at will, by not supporting them once the shutdown ends.
The minority leader's defense of his actions made practical sense befitting his career-long adherence to the Senate's institutional practices. But his actions on the funding bill created a firestorm in his party that has not abated in the days since, and that includes calls for his ouster as leader and for a future primary challenge. Many Democrats nationwide would prefer to see Schumer and House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries concede nothing at all, big or small, to the Republicans. They’d cheer almost any dramatic measure that defies Trump’s shock-and-awe assault on laws, program funding, and court decisions in the first two months of his return.
Active partisan Democrats say they get nothing from obeying the old rules of the game when the other side refuses.
Some government insiders also privately question the tactical path Schumer followed to eventually acquiesce to the GOP budget resolution. Only a day earlier, he expressed the belief that it would be stopped, and it was not.
For the senator, blowback to his decision may be short-term. This conflict is different from the food fights that afflicted the House GOP in recent years. Schumer, 74, is in his fifth term in the upper chamber, and it’s unclear who if anyone might challenge him for leadership.
Back in New York, he has absorbed criticism from both backers and opponents of Israel’s government. But if Schumer seeks reelection, it wouldn’t be until 2028, so the impact of current clashing views is unclear.
Importantly, some of Schumer’s loudest critics have come from the House, where the budget resolution squeaked through. Democrats there don’t lack motivation to mount the kind of obstruction and resistance that their Republican colleagues showed during Democratic presidencies. Next year, Jeffries and his caucus will try to win the chamber’s majority in midterm elections.
Showing the impact of chaos driven by Trump will be high on the Democrats’ agenda. Right now, House Speaker Mike Johnson and all his GOP conference members have their own problems — such as trying to loyally defend the Trump-Elon Musk elimination of earmarked community funds that they themselves put in the budget.
The mood of the "out" party grows dark and defiant, while the "in" party looks unchecked and in lockstep. That’s the moment in a nutshell. Still, fast shifts can occur in Washington. Like it or not, New York's senior senator becomes a key part of that partisan story.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
