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ilhan omar
House Progressives Denounce 'Morally Bankrupt' Bill to End Shutdown Without Healthcare Guarantee
"Make no mistake, people will die from these skyrocketing healthcare costs, paired with Republicans’ brutal Medicaid cuts," said Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Nov 12, 2025
As the US House appears likely to vote Wednesday to reopen the government, House progressives issued a scathing rebuke to their Democratic colleagues in the Senate who voted for a funding bill with no guarantee to protect the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans.
With the backing of leadership, the continued resolution was advanced by a group of eight Senate Democrats this weekend to end what has been the longest shutdown in US history.
In a joint statement, the 94-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) announced its opposition to the stopgap funding bill, which it said "includes no provisions to guarantee affordable healthcare and protect tens of millions of Americans from massive price spikes to their premiums, and imposes no strong guardrails to prevent the Trump administration from violating appropriations laws."
The bill agrees to fund the government until the end of 2026, without a deal to extend ACA subsidies that, if allowed to expire at the end of the year, will result in more than 20 million Americans seeing their insurance premiums more than double, according to analysis by KFF. It also introduces no new provisions to prevent President Donald Trump from refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress, nor does it address the nearly $1 trillion worth of Medicaid cuts passed in July’s GOP spending bill.
"The Senate-passed bill is a betrayal of working people and massively fails to address the urgent needs of the American people,” said CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “Instead of working toward a fair deal, House Republicans refused to negotiate and abdicated their duty to serve the American people."
"The Senate-passed bill is morally bankrupt. It is indefensible to allow more than 20 million Americans to see their premiums double and let millions lose their healthcare coverage. Healthcare is a human right, and this bill contradicts that fundamental principle," Omar continued. "Make no mistake, people will die from these skyrocketing healthcare costs, paired with Republicans’ brutal Medicaid cuts."
After over a month of holding out, Democrats ultimately cracked under the White House's use of the shutdown to punish segments of the American public: Government workers hit with mass layoffs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients illegally denied this month’s benefits, and residents of blue states and cities stripped of congressionally appropriated funding for critical infrastructure.
While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted no on the deal to break the Democratic filibuster, he is widely understood to be the driving force behind the agreement, supporting the clique of eight Democratic senators who voted with the GOP—none of whom face reelection in 2026—to take the fall.
In the aftermath of the cave, Schumer has faced calls from several House Democrats to step down from leadership, including Reps. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Mike Levin (Calif.). However, none in the Senate, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have joined in that push, even though any one of them could force a vote on his leadership within seven days.
As part of the Senate deal, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) promised that Republicans would hold a vote to extend healthcare subsidies within 40 days. But CPC chairman Greg Casar dismissed it as "nothing but a pinky promise."
“A deal that doesn’t reduce healthcare costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them,” Casar said. “Millions of families would pay the price.”
The CPC has said it will vote no when the bill comes to the House for a vote on Wednesday, as have most other Democrats.
“I will not support any deal that doesn’t improve the lives of working Americans,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the co-chair of the CPC political action committee. “End of story.”
In the GOP-controlled chamber, Democrats cannot stop the bill on their own. But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can only afford to lose two Republicans, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has already signaled that he will vote no.
While others, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have expressed concern and disgust toward her GOP colleagues over the bill's lack of a solution to the looming healthcare apocalypse, there's no indication that enough Republicans will defect to kill the resolution.
On Tuesday, Republicans in the House voted down a Democratic amendment that would have extended ACA subsidies for three years.
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Frey Defeats Democratic Socialist Fateh to Win Third Term as Minneapolis Mayor
“They may have won this race, but we have changed the narrative about what kind of city Minneapolis can be,” Omar Fateh said.
Nov 05, 2025
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey fended off a challenge from democratic socialist Omar Fateh to secure a third term by winning enough support in the second round of the city's ranked-choice voting system.
City election officials declared Frey, a Democrat, the winner Wednesday morning after tabulating second- and subsequent-choice votes. Frey won 42% of first-choice votes, followed by Fateh with 32%, former pastor DeWayne Davis with 14%, and entrepreneur Jazz Hampton with 10%.
Fateh—a Democratic state senator and son of Somali immigrants—congratulated Frey on his victory.
“They may have won this race, but we have changed the narrative about what kind of city Minneapolis can be,” he said. “Because now, truly affordable housing, workers’ rights, and public safety rooted in care are no longer side conversations; they are at the center of the narrative.”
Thank you, Minneapolis!While this wasn’t the outcome we wanted, I am incredibly grateful to every single person who supported our grassroots campaign. I’ll keep fighting alongside you to build the city we deserve. Onward.
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— Omar Fateh (@omarfatehmn.com) November 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Frey said in a statement Wednesday, “From right now through my final seconds as mayor, I will work tirelessly to make our great city a place where everyone, regardless of who you are or where you come from, can build a brilliant life in an affordable home and a safe neighborhood."
Fateh’s campaign drew comparisons with that of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, another progressive state lawmaker and democratic socialist who was bombarded with racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic hate by prominent right-wing figures. Like Mamdani, Fateh hoped voters would focus on his record of serving his constituency in the state Legislature.
Among the dozens of bills authored by Fateh were a successful proposal to fund tuition-free public colleges and universities and tribal colleges for students from families with household incomes below $80,000, including undocumented immigrants, and another measure that exempted fentanyl test strips from being considered drug paraphernalia.
Fateh was also the chief state Senate author of a bill that would have ensured that drivers on ride-hailing applications like Uber and Lyft were paid minimum wage and received workplace protections. Although the bill was approved by both houses of the state Legislature, it was vetoed by Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Gov. Tim Walz, sparking widespread outrage among progressives.
Initially chosen over Frey by state DFL delegates, Fatah's endorsement was rescinded in August by state party officials, sparking widespread outrage from progressives including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who condemned the "inexcusable" move, which she chalked up to "the influence of big money in our politics."
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Omar Says Trump Plot to Invoke Insurrection Act an ‘Unhinged Act of Authoritarianism’
"Invoking the Insurrection Act in his manufactured war on American cities is both illegal and unconstitutional," warned the Minnesota progressive lawmaker amid growing concern over Trump plot to foment unrest.
Oct 08, 2025
President Donald Trump was nonchalant in his response to a question on Tuesday about the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the country to suppress rebellion, violence, or enforce the law, but Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was clear in her warning about the move that Trump suggested could be coming.
"Invoking the Insurrection Act in his manufactured war on American cities is both illegal and unconstitutional," said Omar on social media. "Another unhinged act of authoritarianism."
When asked in the Oval Office about invoking the Insurrection Act, which was last used in 1992 to quell unrest in Los Angeles after four police officers were acquitted of beating Black motorist Rodney King, Trump said that "it's been invoked before, as you know," before repeating the claim that "there's lots of crime in Chicago."
Q: Are you planning to invoke the Insurrection Act?
TRUMP: Well, it's been invoked before. If you look at Chicago -- Chicago is a great city where's a lot of crime and if the governor can't do the job, we'll do that job. pic.twitter.com/BJHrSJmueE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 7, 2025
As Common Dreams reported in August, crime in all of the cities Trump has threatened to deploy federal agents and troops to has been falling—contrary to his vague repeated claims that conditions are “bad, very bad" in the nation's largest and most diverse cities.
Chicago—a longtime target of the president—has seen fewer homicides this year than any year in the past decade, and reported a 30% decline in shootings and homicides in 2024. Violent crime in the city is down 25% from 2019—one of the largest declines among large cities.
But "Operation Midway Blitz," Trump's deployment of hundreds of armed federal immigration agents to the city, has brought what Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called "chaos" to the city where residents have held nonviolent protests against the anti-immigration raids and detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Since the operation began on September 9, ICE and other immigration agents have fatally shot an undocumented immigrant, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, during a traffic stop; slammed congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh to the ground at a protest; attacked a priest and a journalist with pepper balls; pointed a gun directly at a civilian who was filming them; and imposed other violence on communities.
Pritzker said on Monday that he believes the president is intentionally causing "fear and confusion" on the streets of Chicago—as well as other cities such as Portland, Oregon—to create the appearance of chaos that's being fueled not by armed, masked federal agents, but by the communities there, and that must be stamped out by an even larger show of force.
Pritzker: “The Trump administration is following a playbook: Cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem that peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them. Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act.” pic.twitter.com/bSlHVEaQPo
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) October 6, 2025
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich did not mince words in a Substack article on Monday about what he believes the president is planning.
"The direction we’re going is either martial law or civil war," said Reich. "I don’t want to unduly alarm you, but you need to be aware of this imminent danger. It’s unfolding very rapidly."
This week, Trump intensified federal forces' presence in Chicago and Portland by deploying not only the Illinois National Guard but also 400 members of the Texas National Guard to the two cities, the latter of which the president has described as "war-ravaged" due to protests that have been held outside an ICE facility in recent months. A federal judge found no veracity to the claim last weekend when she barred the administration from deploying to Oregon National Guard to Portland.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, however, embraced the president's claim that the National Guard needed to protect federal agents to the public, telling Pritzker in a social media post, "You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it."
Reich wrote that "Americans from so-called 'red' states, with the backing of their Republican governors and legislatures, are on the brink of using lethal force against Americans in so-called 'blue' states, whose Democratic governors and legislatures strongly oppose the moves."
He added that several steps toward a wider deployment of military forces via the Insurrection Act have already been taken, when Trump deployed ICE to cities, provoked demonstrations with their presence, and exaggerated "the scale and severity" of the protests.
Reich wrote:
The third step is for Trump and Hegseth to deploy federalized National Guard troops to control the demonstrators, an act that’s already enflaming the public and provoking some actual violence.
Until Trump’s announcement that he was sending troops into Portland, protests rarely numbered more than two dozen people. Since his announcement, clashes have become more violent.
The fourth step will be for Trump and Hegseth to invoke the Insurrection Act.
He said as much today. The Insurrection Act empowers a president to deploy the US military and to federalize the National Guard units of the individual states to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or armed rebellion against the federal government of the United States.
Reich expressed hope that federal courts including the Supreme Court will stop Trump's plan to deploy the military in US cities, which the president also teased in his speech in Quantico, Virginia on September 30, when he told the nation's top generals and admirals that the country is "under invasion from within" and said cities should be used as "training grounds" to target domestic "enemies."
"I hope we don’t come near to this," said Reich. "But I believe it is Trump’s plan... and they are implementing it as quickly as they can."
The ACLU last week called for "more concrete protections" at the state and local level as the invocation of the Insurrection Act appears increasingly imminent.
"States and cities should move to limit or withdraw from partnerships with the Trump administration that are being used to terrify and attack our neighbors and loved ones, like ICE’s expanding 287(g) program," wrote Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the group's national political advocacy division.
"Our schools, healthcare facilities, libraries, and shelters should establish protocols to limit law enforcement access without a warrant so that they are safer for our community members to visit," she added. "Our state and local governments should invest in proven public safety strategies and reject the administration’s attempt to redeploy the military as a police force in America’s streets."
"While much of the formal power to stop these deployments lies in the hands of local, state, and federal officials, we are not powerless—and it’s imperative that we keep speaking out," Shah added. "The Trump administration is relying on people being too scared to resist its cruel and unlawful measures. But the deployments in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, and Memphis have shown us that we are stronger together."
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