For the first time, the federal government has shut down under one party (Republican!) rule

Prov­ing once again that they are utter­ly inca­pable of gov­ern­ing, the Trump regime and con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans col­lec­tive­ly failed tonight to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment fund­ed and open for busi­ness, result­ing in the first gov­ern­ment shut­down in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States under one par­ty rule.

“This will be called the #Trump­Shut­down,” said Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Chuck Schumer in remarks on the Sen­ate floor, after detail­ing his unsuc­cess­ful efforts to strike a deal with Repub­li­cans to sup­ply Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes to avert a shutdown.

“There is no one who deserves the blame for the posi­tion we find our­selves in more than Pres­i­dent Trump,” Schumer added.

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene, who rep­re­sents NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict (WA-01) not­ed that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are also to blame.

“We’ve known fund­ing would expire at the end of Fri­day since we passed a Con­tin­u­ing Res­o­lu­tion just four weeks ago,” said DelBene.

“And yet, con­gres­sion­al lead­ers failed once again to bring up bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion that would keep the gov­ern­ment fund­ed. We also know from the last Repub­li­can shut­down that it dra­mat­i­cal­ly harms our con­stituents and the econ­o­my. From crab­bers and brew­ers to vet­er­ans and park rangers – a gov­ern­ment shut­down effects near­ly every aspect of our econ­o­my and harms all Amer­i­cans. Repub­li­cans con­trol every branch of gov­ern­ment, and it is shame­ful that they refused to work in a bipar­ti­san way to fund the basic gov­ern­ment ser­vices Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers expect.”

U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray echoed Del­Bene’s statement.

“Once again, Repub­li­can lead­ers have pushed us into a com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary gov­ern­ment shut­down. Democ­rats have made clear, again and again, for months and months, that we want to work with the Repub­li­can major­i­ty on a bipar­ti­san deal to address the many chal­lenges fac­ing the fam­i­lies we represent.”

“But instead of work­ing with us to get a result, Pres­i­dent Trump and Repub­li­can lead­ers who con­trol the House and Sen­ate were more focused on point­ing fin­gers and play­ing polit­i­cal games. This is no way to run the gov­ern­ment and no way to treat fam­i­lies look­ing to Con­gress for solu­tions, not dys­func­tion and uncertainty.”

“Now that Repub­li­cans have shut down the gov­ern­ment, I am going to be doing every­thing I can to per­suade the Repub­li­can major­i­ty to reopen the gov­ern­ment and get to work with Democ­rats to increase invest­ments in defense and domes­tic pri­or­i­ties, pass a long-term exten­sion of the Children’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram [CHIP] and crit­i­cal pri­ma­ry care pro­grams, and final­ly pass leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect our DREAM­ers who have known no home but Amer­i­ca and who now have to live in fear for their futures,” Sen­a­tor Mur­ray added.

“There are bipar­ti­san solu­tions to all of these chal­lenges, and there is no rea­son for Repub­li­can lead­ers to stay in their par­ti­san cor­ner and refuse to get them done.”

“This Repub­li­can shut­down will sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties in Wash­ing­ton State and across the coun­try if it is not end­ed quick­ly and respon­si­bly. I am ready to get to work with Repub­li­cans to fix the prob­lems they have cre­at­ed, and I can only hope that they decide to put the peo­ple and fam­i­lies we rep­re­sent above par­ti­san­ship and politics.”

“There is no ques­tion this fed­er­al shut­down cre­ates chaos, con­fu­sion and uncer­tain­ty for hard-work­ing fam­i­lies, stu­dents, small busi­ness­es, vet­er­ans and seniors across Wash­ing­ton State,” agreed Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

“My office is work­ing with state agen­cies to under­stand how their oper­a­tions, and Washington’s com­mu­ni­ties, will be impacted.”

“At this point, we feel con­fi­dent most of our agen­cies will be able to oper­ate with­out inter­rup­tion in the short-term. But we can­not speak for the fed­er­al ser­vices, and the tens of thou­sands of fed­er­al work­ers, in Wash­ing­ton State.”

“We need Con­gress to do its job and get a bud­get passed soon. Pres­i­dent Trump needs to work with Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in Con­gress on a bipar­ti­san plan to imme­di­ate­ly end this cri­sis and keep the gov­ern­ment open.”

“We share numer­ous pri­or­i­ties such as pro­tect­ing Dream­ers, extend­ing the Children’s Health Insur­ance Pro­gram, and address­ing the opi­oid epi­dem­ic. There’s no rea­son Con­gress can’t get all these things done, now.”

Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown said in a state­ment she’s also very dis­mayed that Repub­li­cans have failed to keep the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment open for business.

“The stakes are too high to put pol­i­tics before peo­ple: Pres­i­dent Trump stripped pro­tec­tions for Dream­ers and Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans have not pri­or­i­tized Chil­dren’s Health insur­ance,” Brown said.

“Ore­gon’s fam­i­lies and Dream­ers deserve cer­tain­ty, not par­ti­san­ship. But, as Wash­ing­ton D.C. falls apart, Ore­go­ni­ans will con­tin­ue to come togeth­er. We must do every­thing in our pow­er as a state to con­tin­ue to pro­tect our most vul­ner­a­ble and pro­vide the sta­bil­i­ty our econ­o­my needs to grow.”

“The Gov­er­nor’s Office is work­ing with state agen­cies to man­age any impacts and con­tin­ue nor­mal oper­a­tions,” Brown’s state­ment added. “If a shut­down lasts longer than two to three weeks, state agen­cies, depend­ing on their own unique cir­cum­stances, may have to devel­op con­tin­gency plans.”