Big Government’s biggest union is calling for an end to the protracted federal government shutdown.
Some Democrats have publicly shrugged off the American Federation of Government Employees’ (AFGE) plea for congressional passage of a clean continuing resolution to end what is on track to be the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history. But money talks. AFGE has pumped in a generous amount to the campaigns of House Democrats facing tough elections next year.
Shrugging has its limits.
As the shutdown hits the one month mark and the full force of missing federal paychecks lands, Dem leaders have been talking tough. The sweating narrative from the left, carried by the useful idiots in the accomplice media, is that the AFGE’s urging to call the time of death on the shutdown has effectively galvanized Democrats into a collective Alfred E. Neuman — What, me worry?
But there’s plenty to worry about for Democrats digging in their heels and hurting the people they claim to fight for. With some 800,000 members, the nation’s largest federal employee union delivers votes and cash to Dem campaigns. The blustering can’t hide the concern.
“It has a lot of impact, and they’ve [federal workers] been our friends and we’ve worked with them over the years,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin told CNN this week, even as he insisted his liberal colleagues would soldier on.
‘I’m Just Uncomfortable Lying’
Ask Maine Rep. Jared Golden about his friends at the American Federation of Government Employees. Golden, seeking his fifth term representing Maine’s highly competitive 2nd Congressional District, is one of the more vulnerable Democrats staring at next year’s midterms. The congressman, who has to deal with a primary challenger, is lagging slightly behind Paul LaPage, Maine’s former Republican governor, in the latest University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll.
In May, AFGE contributed $5,000 to Golden’s campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Government and private-sector unions remain an essential part of the incumbent’s campaign dreams. Perhaps that’s why the congressman busted his fellow Democrats for lying about their shutdown brinksmanship strategy. As the only Democrat to vote for the Republican CR last month, he told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Democrats shouldn’t use shutdown politics to advance their health care agenda.
“I’m just uncomfortable lying about the strategy to win and shutting down the government. We’ve never been the party that does that,” Golden told the publication.
‘Real and Painful’
Over the past two years, the federal workers union has dropped $11,000 into the campaign coffers of Rep. Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat from New York’s 3rd District. The National Republican Congressional Committee has targeted Suozzi and fellow tristate Reps. Laura Gillen and Josh Riley of New York and Nellie Pou of New Jersey, each seen as vulnerable in 2026.
In all, 20 vulnerable Democrat incumbents have benefitted from the federal government employee union’s campaign contributions.
- Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-N.Y.)
- Rep. Jared Moskowitz D-Fla.
- Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine
- Rep. Josh Riley, D-N.Y.
- Rep. Laura Gillen, D-N.Y.
- Rep. Nellie Pou, D-N.J.
- Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va.
- Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C.
- Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla.
- Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio
- Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio
- Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind.
- Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M.
- Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
- Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
- Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas
- Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif.
- Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev.
- Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.
- Rep. Susie Lee, D.-Nev.
And all voted but one voted for the shutdown and, it seems, against the interests of the union and the government workers that have supported them.
Following the House vote last month, Suozzi warned that “if the shutdown continues, the impact on my Long Island and Queens constituents will be real and painful: federal workers missing paychecks, small businesses waiting on federal contracts, and seniors facing uncertainty with access to services they count on.” That shutdown began with his vote and all but one of his Dem colleagues; it continues because just two Senate Democrats have voted to end it.
‘A National Disgrace’
Rep. Derek Tran, D-Calif., posted on his Facebook account that it was his honor to join the American Federation of Government Employees at a Long Beach rally “in defense of workers’ right to unionize.”
“I’m committed to protecting and expanding the right to collectively bargain for improved workplace conditions,” Tran declared. He, too, voted for the shutdown.
“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley in a statement.
“Because when the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” he added. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.”
They can look to the Democrats, who have held the government and its employees hostage while they hold their breath for extended pandemic-era health care subsidies and health care for illegal immigrants.
Democrats own this shutdown. The nation’s largest federal union knows that, too.
“Democrats talk a big game about standing with workers, but when the cameras are off, they side with the radicals over American families,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella. Republicans voted to pay our federal workers. Democrats voted to punish them. That’s political cruelty, plain and simple.”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
