Fact check: Democrats voted 13 times to shut down government

Executive Summary: The claim “Democrats voted 13 times to shut down government” is unsupported by the available materials and contradicted by multiple contemporaneous accounts; one outlet cites a figure of 13 related to short-term funding votes, while other accounts point to lower counts or describe repeated procedural blocks rather than affirmative votes to cause shutdowns ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The evidence in the provided packet is inconsistent and incomplete, with most of the reporting focused on the 2025 shutdown’s impacts rather than a clear, reconciled tally of how many times Democratic lawmakers voted in ways that directly produced a shutdown ^{[4] [5]}.

1. Why this number matters and how it’s being presented like a political score: The difference between “voted to shut down the government” and “voted for short-term continuing resolutions” is material and often conflated for political effect; one source frames 13 votes for continuing resolutions as evidence that Democrats repeatedly chose temporary funding over negotiated full-year funding ^[1]. Other sources frame the story around Senate Democrats blocking bills to reopen government multiple times ^{[2] [3]}. The packet shows competing framings—counting procedural blocks, counting votes for continuing resolutions, and counting direct obstruction votes—each yields different tallies and political narratives, and none of the supplied items reconciles those methods into a single, verifiable number.

2. What the Fox-affiliated report actually says and its limitations: The item in the packet attributed to Fox News asserts a pattern of Democrats supporting short-term funding measures 13 times, implying a responsibility for repeated funding uncertainty ^[1]. That framing highlights temporary continuing resolutions as the metric, but it does not by itself demonstrate intent to “shut down” the government; continuing resolutions are typically used to avoid shutdowns. The report’s selective metric and lack of a reconciled vote-by-vote accounting in the packet make the claim ambiguous between short-term funding votes and votes that would have allowed a shutdown to occur.

3. Contradictory counts and procedural nuance raised by regional outlets: Reporting from the Center Square in the packet offers alternative tallies, including claims that Senate Democrats blocked legislation to reopen government for the 11th time or that Democrats voted fewer times to cause shutdowns ^{[2] [3]}. These accounts focus on filibuster or procedural blocks in the Senate rather than House passage or votes on continuing resolutions, demonstrating that different institutional mechanics (House vs. Senate rules, cloture thresholds) produce different counts. The packet shows no single authoritative tabulation reconciling these institutional differences.

4. Coverage that does not take a position but shows context and impact: Several pieces in the packet do not assert a vote count at all; instead they describe the current 2025 shutdown’s effects on parks, federal workers, and the economy, and outline Democratic efforts to propose alternative bills with immediate pay for furloughed employees ^{[4] [6] [7] [5] [8] [9]}. Those items underscore that the practical consequences and policy responses are the dominant coverage themes, not a definitive historical accounting of how many times a particular party “voted to shut down” government. This absence is important: the record in the packet is incomplete for adjudicating the numeric claim.

5. How different metrics would change the conclusion: If one counts every vote for a short-term continuing resolution as a vote that enabled shutdown risk, the number can be tallied higher (as one source suggests 13) ^[1]. If one instead counts only votes that directly rejected funding bills or actively voted to keep the government closed, the count falls, and several pieces in the packet claim lower totals or repeated procedural blocks instead ^{[2] [3]}. The packet lacks a consistent methodology and therefore demonstrates that the original assertion is method-dependent and not a settled factual ledger.

6. What’s missing from the packet that matters for a definitive judgment: The materials do not include a comprehensive, date-stamped vote-by-vote roll call analysis from authoritative congressional records or nonpartisan trackers to reconcile House and Senate actions, continuing resolutions, and cloture votes across multiple fiscal cycles. Without that, any headline number—13, 11, five, or other—remains a product of selective counting rather than a proven fact ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The packet’s mix of partisan and policy coverage highlights the need for neutral primary-source vote data to adjudicate the claim.

7. Bottom line and how readers should treat the claim going forward: Based on the packet, the claim that “Democrats voted 13 times to shut down government” is not substantiated as a settled fact; one outlet reports 13 votes for continuing resolutions, while other outlets report lower counts or frame the actions as procedural blocks ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Readers should treat the figure as contentious and method-dependent, seek an official congressional roll-call compilation, and be wary of political messaging that collapses distinct voting actions into a single accusation without clarifying the counting method.