Government shutdowns may be fewer, but they’re increasingly disruptive

At 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday, the federal government entered its first shutdown of the new year, 

Shutdowns aren’t a new phenomenon in Washington, D.C., but they’ve slowed in their frequency since the turn of the century. Even so, rising partisan rancor, energized political bases and congressional gridlock have contributed to longer, more disruptive shutdowns in recent decades.

SENATE REPUBLICANS PUSH FOR HOUSE GOP REBELLION AGAINST FUNDING PACKAGE, VOTER ID LEGISLATION

Since 1976, the U.S. government has experienced 22 shutdowns. All shutdowns are unique in why they happen, and typically, the party that thrusts the government into a closure doesn’t win the policy dispute at its core. 

The most recent one, the longest in U.S. history, happened because of a funding dispute over Obamacare enhanced premium subsidies. Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded that Republicans negotiate or outright extend the subsidies, which eventually expired last month. 

That closure, which saw every federal agency shut down, lasted 43 days. 

HOUSE DEMOCRATS MUTINY SCHUMER’S DEAL WITH WHITE HOUSE, THREATENING LONGER SHUTDOWN

Before that, the previous shutdown lasted 34 days, from December 2018 to January 2019, and was triggered over President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. At the time, Schumer and then-incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to give Trump more money to build his wall along the Southern border. 

He walked away from that then-record-shattering shutdown without the funding. 

This current shutdown, which just entered its second day on Sunday, is an outlier of sorts. Trump and Schumer agreed on a funding deal that stripped out the controversial Department of Homeland Security spending bill and replaced it with a short-term, two-week funding extension. 

That deal advanced out of the Senate on Friday, despite grumbling from both sides of the aisle. 

Its survival in the House is an open question, given heavy resistance among House Republicans who are demanding some policy wins, like the inclusion of voter ID legislation into the bill.