I don't know, man. This smells like a trap, even if Sen. John Fetterman offers this honestly.
Ever since September 30, the Senate has had a clean continuing resolution on the table that will allow for several weeks of negotiations on the FY2026 budget. Senate Democrats refuse to end their filibuster, demanding well over a trillion dollars' worth of concessions, including the effective repeal of key parts of the GOP's reconciliation package that passed over the summer. For three weeks, Chuck Schumer has kept the government (mainly) shut down, and still refuses to consider ending the impasse.
One big part of his caucus disagrees. Fetterman has voted to end debate and pass the CR each time it has come to the floor, and he's tired of the hypocrisy from his fellow Democrats. Today he "stunned reporters" by endorsing a rules change that would carve out clean CRs as an exception to filibusters:
Senator John Fetterman stunned reporters on Capitol Hill after backing Republicans’ call to “nuke the filibuster” to reopen the government.
— Overton (@overton_news) October 21, 2025
REPORTER: “Some of your Republican colleagues have proposed ‘nuking’ the filibuster to force the government to reopen. What do you make of… pic.twitter.com/arEQljyWEa
“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,” he said, before noting U.S. Capitol Police officers aren’t getting paid during the shutdown.
“This is just bad political theater. Open it up,” he said.
Asked if he would support Republicans “nuking” the filibuster to let a House-passed funding measure pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote, Fetterman replied affirmatively.
“Carve it out for that, absolutely,” he said of a proposal to create a carve-out in the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation through the Senate to allow the government to reopen.
“We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it. Carve it out so we can move on. 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,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it.”
True enough, to a point. Democrats didn't run on getting a small carve-out for clean CRs, though -- they ran on nuking the filibuster entirely.
Why does that matter? It does sound reasonable to create an exception for clean CRs; in fact, it sounds more reasonable than the convoluted mess of reconciliation packages, a process which includes "Byrd baths," "vote-a-ramas," and hands legislative authority to an unelected official in the Senate parliamentarian. A clean CR just extends the previous budget authority for defined periods of time until Congress can complete a budget. What could go wrong?
A few things, actually. For one thing, the lack of a filibuster on clean CRs while keeping it for other budget bills (other than reconciliation) would incentivize Congress to rely on clean CRs rather than doing actual budgeting. Theoretically, at least, Congress could go years without passing a real budget, which would turn the FY2025 budget into a weird self-perpetuating baseline that would maintain the status quo in DC. It is very easy to imagine that this would be more than theoretical, too, given the political incentives and disincentives around budgeting.
More importantly, it would erode the protection of the filibuster in other aspects too. Harry Reid's nuclear option in 2013 has already done tremendous damage to the idea of consensus-building when it comes to judges and political appointees. Extending that to budgets will make those more partisan in nature too, and eventually, we'll end up with a Senate that operates just like the House, only with older representatives. (Worth noting: This would be much less of an issue if we repealed the 17th Amendment and returned the Senate to being accountable to the states.)
Mostly, though, one has to question why the GOP would bother at this point. The Schumer Shutdown is handing enormous power to Trump, and is allowing Russ Vought to start draining the swamp with gusto. It's not selling as a Trump issue with voters, and Democrats keep losing ground with voters the longer they refuse to pass the clean CR on the floor under the current rules.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has the right idea:
.@LeaderJohnThune: "People keep saying, 'Negotiate!' — Negotiate what? I don't know what that is right now. The government needs to open up, and then we're happy to sit down and talk about any other issues the Democrats want to talk about." pic.twitter.com/LCms5PQq3K
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 21, 2025
That's the message that Republicans need to keep hammering home. That's a winning message. Let Schumer twist in the wind with his filibuster as long as he wants.
The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:
- What happened this weekend? Did America stand up to the monarchy, or did they turn out for anarchy?
- Andrew Malcolm and I reach way back to the Crimean War for a couple of reasons today, as well as the Battle of Rorke's Drift (IYKYK), and more.
- We dissect the Protection Racket Media's coverage of the No Kings rallies, and scoff at the idea that this has any significance other than a check box on the way to a Democrat retreat on the Schumer Shutdown.
The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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