Arizona’s Republican congressional delegation is calling on Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego to support a GOP-backed plan to reopen the government that has repeatedly failed to garner the 60 votes it needs to pass the Senate.
In a letter, Arizona’s six Republican congressmen say the continuing resolution that already passed the U.S. House will fund the government for seven weeks and is a clean spending plan with no additional policy measures attached.
“This same kind of resolution, with no partisan extraneous policy riders, has garnered bipartisan support routinely in the past,” according to the letter signed by Reps. Juan Ciscomani, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane and Abe Hamadeh. “In fact, you both have supported these funding levels and voted for these bills in the past.”
The measure has failed several times in the Senate already and needs some Democratic support to pass.
But Democrats have steadfastly opposed the resolution, supporting a separate measure that would also extend health insurance tax credits for people who use the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Gallego told CNN that if those credits expire, some Arizonans will see their insurance rates double.
“What we’re hearing right now is if we don’t get these premiums correct, if we don’t get the subsidies there, 4 million Americans are just going to lose their health care altogether,” Gallego said. “And that doesn’t even count all of the private sector premiums that are also going to go up.”
The 371,000 Arizonans who buy their insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace could see their premiums rise as much as 55% after Congress failed to extend federal subsidies for low and middle-income households, according to the Arizona Department of Insurance.
Arizona’s Republican delegation accused Kelly and Gallego of “playing political games” with the livelihoods of Arizonans who work for the federal government or rely on government services.
But Democrats say it is Republicans — who control chambers of Congress and the White House — are to blame for the shutdown.
“The Republicans have the House, the Senate, the White House. This is their responsibility to negotiate a way out of this,” Kelly told CNN. “The president spent all of about one hour negotiating with Senate and House Democrats and Republicans.”
In their letter, the Republicans said Kelly and Gallego should support the GOP plan the next chance they get in order to continue funding government services and paychecks for federal employees.
“Our goal in passing this bill was quite simple: keep the government open and functioning for all those who depend on it for a paycheck, and the critical services that our federal government provides,” they wrote. “Our state is home to ten military installations, over 34,000 federal civilian employees, approximately 20,000 active-duty service members, over 450,000 veterans and countless additional federal entities.”
The Trump administration has threatened to use the shutdown to further cut the federal workforce and other federal spending in states across the country.
The Senate is scheduled to vote again on Monday afternoon on both the Republican and Democratic plans to end the shutdown.
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