Democratic Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen is continuing to embrace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s shutdown strategy despite major tourism-related businesses and hotels in her state begging for relief.
Rosen blamed Republicans for the 34-day shutdown when pressed about nearly 500 travel industry-related groups — including 12 located in Nevada — calling on Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government. The Nevada Democrat has voted against a bipartisan clean CR to fund the government on 13 separate occasions since the end of September.
“They need to call [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune and tell him to come talk to us, because the President, [Speaker] Mike Johnson and Senator Thune are closing this government down,” Rosen told the DCNF on Monday. “They’re refusing to work with us to get it back open. It’s their shutdown.”
Rosen’s continued support for Schumer’s hardball tactics comes as federal employees, including air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, are going without pay during the shutdown and flight delays are becoming commonplace at U.S. airports due to staffing shortages.
More than 5,000 domestic flights experienced delays on Sunday alone with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy forecasting difficult travel conditions this week as the shutdown drags on.
Tourism giants, including MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, The Venetian and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority were among the Nevada signatories warning of “devastating” economic consequences if the shutdown continues into the holiday travel season.
The tourism and hospitality industry is Nevada’s largest employer given Las Vegas’ massive entertainment market.
“With Thanksgiving, the busiest travel period of the year, imminently approaching, the consequences of a continued shutdown will be immediate, deeply felt by millions of American travelers, and economically devastating to communities in every state,” the letter says in part.
The U.S. Travel Association has estimated that the economic losses to the domestic travel industry have averaged $1 billion per week since the beginning of the shutdown.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has also projected that the U.S. economy overall will lose between $7 billion to $14 billion due to the ongoing shutdown.
Rosen’s votes against a clean CR stands in stark contrast to the approach Nevada’s other senator, fellow Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, has taken during the month-long shutdown.
Cortez Masto has consistently supported the bipartisan CR favored by Republicans to reopen the government. She has argued that shutting down the government hurts her Nevada constituents.
Though the U.S. Travel Association-led letter does not mention either party by name, the letter voices support for Republicans’ approach to fund the government via a clean CR. Major airlines, public sector unions and countless industry groups have also called for the swift passage of a clean stopgap funding bill to end the shutdown.
The majority of Senate Democrats, however, have refused to open the government until Republicans agree to add on various health care provisions to a government funding package. Thune has countered that Republicans will not allow the government to be held hostage by Democrats’ partisan policy demands.
“As I’ve said more times than I can count, Republicans are more than willing to have a health care discussion with Democrats,” Thune said on the Senate floor Monday. “But first Democrats need to stop playing politics with people’s lives and reopen the government.”
Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.
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