By James Finck, Ph.D.
It looks like our overextended national nightmare is finally over. President Trump signed the funding bill last Thursday, ending the longest federal government shutdown in history.
There has been a great deal of criticism of this shutdown as members of both political parties shifted blame back and forth across the aisle as they fought over extension of Obamacare subsidies.
Interestingly, in my classes, the focus of much of the blame is onTrump. I explain to my students that government shutdowns are fairly new, and, in most cases, are not the fault of the President, but of Congress.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution states, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
This section gives Congress and only Congress the authority to spend. The 2018 shutdown came about because Trump wanted funding to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. The 2013 shutdown came because Obama wanted money to fund the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. In both circumstances, the presidents had to ask Congress for money because the executive branch does not control spending— Congress does.
While there have been 11 shutdowns since 1980, most have been under four days long. Of the five of any length, the president was only directly responsible for one.
In 1995, President Clinton faced a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. When the Democratic president vetoed Congress’ budget bill, he caused a six-day shutdown. Though temporary measures were passed, a month later when Senate Democrats blocked the bill, the government was shut down again— this time for 21 days.
In 2013 under President Obama, Democrats controlled the Senate while Republicans held the House. Democrats got the budget passed in the House, but the minority of Republicans held it up while the government closed for 16 days.
In 2018-19, under President Trump, Republicans held both houses of Congress and passed the budget through the House, but Democrats blocked it in the Senate, closing down the government for 35 days.
With the record-setting closure that ended last week, once again, Republicans held the majority in both houses of Congress, but Democrats blocked it for 43 days.
Only one of the five longest government shutdowns were caused by the president; the rest all come from the Senate. The 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives tend not to have a problem passing legislation, but because of filibuster rules and other procedural differences, the 100-member Senate has a higher threshold to cover before passing measures. This allows the minority party to throw a wrench in the works, complicating the process.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.