The party of government shutdowns is at it again

If there’s one thing you can count on when Repub­li­cans con­trol one part of gov­ern­ment and Democ­rats con­trol the oth­ers, it’s that Repub­li­cans will force a gov­ern­ment shutdown.

We saw it in Con­gress in the fall of 2013 when John Boehn­er shut down the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in an attempt to defund the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act. We saw it in Cal­i­for­nia in the sum­mer of 2008 when Repub­li­cans blocked pas­sage of a state bud­get for near­ly three months past the con­sti­tu­tion­al deadline.

And now we’re see­ing it here in Wash­ing­ton State. Repub­li­cans claim that the prob­lem is with the Democ­rats — but the facts show otherwise.

For near­ly the last 30 years, the pat­tern is clear. When Democ­rats con­trol both cham­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture and the Gov­er­nor’s office, state bud­gets are com­plet­ed well in advance of the June 30 dead­line. But when Repub­li­cans have par­tial con­trol, whether a 49–49 split in the State House or a nar­row State Sen­ate major­i­ty, they turn to extrem­ist tactics. 

Rather than nego­ti­ate in good faith, they pre­fer to use Democ­rats’ desire for good gov­ern­ment and their aver­sion to hurt­ing peo­ple who would suf­fer from a gov­ern­ment shut­down as lever­age to get their way.

The lessons from Cal­i­for­nia and from Con­gress are clear: the pub­lic needs to be ral­lied to oppose these awful Repub­li­can tac­tics. And at the next elec­tion, vot­ers need to be remind­ed that it’s Repub­li­cans who have a his­to­ry of threat­en­ing shut­downs in Wash­ing­ton State.