Ocasio-Cortez on shutdown: ‘GOP senators should be scared for their jobs in 2020’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday warned that Republicans should be “scared for their jobs in 2020” following the longest government shutdown in U.S. History.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about witnessing GOP senators “huddle and look around” during Thursday’s unsuccessful efforts to pass bills to open the government.

I went to the Senate yesterday w/ my colleagues to witness who was voting against reopening govmnt.

I watched them huddle & look around. They know this is on them.

GOP Senators should be scared for their jobs in 2020 after voting to imperil so many others’ livelihoods now. https://t.co/tNZeZCyiWk

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 25, 2019

The New York congresswoman shared a report from The Hill about a frustrated Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for the shutdown. 

{mosads}“This is your fault,” Johnson reportedly said.

Ocasio-Cortez was one of roughly 20 House Democrats who marched across the Capitol onto the Senate floor to urge senators to vote Thursday for ending the shutdown, which entered its 35th day on Friday.

Back-to-back votes on competing bills failed in the Senate, leaving parts of the government without funding.

The first vote rejected a proposal backed by the Trump White House that would have exchanged reopening the government for $5.7 billion in funding for Trump’s long-desired wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

That measure would have allowed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and some temporary protected status holders to apply for a three-year extension of some legal protections, but included new restrictions on asylum seekers.

Senate Republicans then blocked a stopgap measure that did not include additional funding for the wall, although six GOP senators broke rank and voted to advance the bill. 

More than 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay missed their second paycheck on Friday.