The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
The voting rights focused firm Law Forward and former Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold filed an amicus brief Monday in a lawsuit brought by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to strike down a law that limits the amount of money political parties can contribute to individual candidates for office.
The lawsuit was initially brought in 2022 by two Republican candidates, including then-Sen. J.D. Vance. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Republican argument and now that decision is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court is expected to hear the case during its 2025-26 term, which began on Monday.
In the amicus brief, Feingold and Law Forward argue that the weakening of campaign finance laws over the past few decades has deeply harmed American democracy — making elected officials more responsive to the needs of their wealthiest donors, in or out of their states and districts, rather than their constituents.
“We don’t have to guess what will happen if additional campaign finance rules are torn up, we’ve already witnessed it in Wisconsin. Striking down these federal limits will remove guardrails that are necessary for a representative democracy to thrive,” Feingold said in a statement. “The erosion of regulations is responsible for an alarming increase in the amount of money flowing through elections, giving wealthy donors an outsized voice in the political process, reducing the public’s faith in their elected representatives, and diminishing voters’ willingness to continue participating in the political process.”
During his 18 years in the Senate, Feingold regularly focused on campaign finance issues, including the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which is commonly known as McCain-Feingold and instituted a number of rules guiding the use of “soft money” by outside groups running ads to influence elections.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010 weakened the law and the brief filed Monday argues the erosion of campaign finance rules has damaged the country’s politics and made its government vulnerable to corruption.
“For a representative democracy to thrive, elected officials must be responsive to their constituents and avoid even the appearance of corruption,” the brief states. “Campaign finance regulation exists to reinforce these guardrails. Yet, for years, opponents of regulation have persistently chiseled away at the limits established to prevent excessive campaign cash from corrupting our elections.”
The brief uses Wisconsin as an example, which since 2015 has not placed a limit on the amount political parties can give to candidates. That change has resulted in wealthy donors from Wisconsin and across the country giving maximum contributions to candidates’ campaigns while giving much larger donations to each candidate’s party — essentially using the party committee as a middleman to funnel millions of dollars into candidate accounts.
“With each election cycle, the total contributions made, especially for statewide candidates, grows at a shocking rate, incentivizing candidates to court the wealthiest donors,” the brief states. “And, as Wisconsin elections have drawn more and more national attention, the pool of prospective donors has expanded to include increasing numbers of millionaires and billionaires residing in other states. Thus, the cycle continues. The flood of money into Wisconsin’s elections has bred accusations of corruption and threatens to drown out — if not completely silence — the voices of average voters.”
The brief argues that the decision by Wisconsin Republicans in 2015 to weaken the state’s campaign finance laws resulted in a downward spiral that opened the floodgates to money pouring into high profile races — most notably campaigns for governor and state Supreme Court.
“Wisconsin’s experience shows exactly what happens when we eliminate these crucial guardrails,” Law Forward attorney Rachel Snyder said. “The wealthiest donors route massive contributions through political parties, effectively buying themselves significant access to and influence with both political parties and elected officials. This isn’t about partisan politics — it’s about preserving a democracy where average citizens’ voices aren’t drowned out by billionaires’ checkbooks.”
A closed sign is seen on the Washington Monument on Oct. 1, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The federal government shut down many operations overnight after Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday the administration is looking for ways to get a handful of additional U.S. Senate Democrats to vote for Republicans’ stopgap spending bill to reopen government.
But, in the meantime, White House officials plan to lay off federal workers en masse, a dramatic and unsettling step that’s not traditionally been taken during past shutdowns.
“We’re going to have to take extraordinary measures to ensure the people’s government operates — again not perfectly because it’s not going to operate perfectly in the midst of a shutdown — but operates as well as it possibly can,” Vance said.
Any Democrats concerned about the impacts of layoffs on federal programs or people’s lives, Vance said, should vote to advance a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has stalled in the Senate. Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs.
Typically during a shutdown, some federal employees are categorized as exempt, meaning they work throughout the funding lapse. Others are furloughed. All receive back pay once Congress funds the government, under a 2019 law.
Widescale layoffs were not part of the 2013 shutdown or the 2018-2019 shutdown that took place during the first Trump administration.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
Vance during the White House briefing placed blame for the shutdown on Democrats, as the Trump administration ramped up similar rhetoric, including on government agency websites that said the “radical left in Congress” is at fault.
“Three moderate Democrats joined 52 Republicans last night. We need five more in order to reopen the government and that’s really where we’re going to focus, is how to get those five additional Democrats,” Vance said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the same briefing that layoffs for federal employees are “imminent” but declined to say what percentage of workers would be let go or share any other details.
Leavitt indicated that White House budget director Russ Vought would release those details “soon,” saying she didn’t want to get ahead of that office.
“These (Reductions in Force) are unfortunately going to have to happen very soon,” Leavitt said.
Effects on key programs
The administration expects several programs will be impacted by the shutdown, including new enrollees in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.
Leavitt said the funding lapse means “1.3 million active duty troops will work now without pay; critical food assistance for low-income women, infants and children will now lapse, no new mothers or children are allowed to join this critical program because of the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government; telehealth services for seniors and in-home treatment options for Medicare patients will now come to an end; nearly 50,000 members of the United States Coast Guard are going to have to work unpaid; over 13,000 air traffic controllers will work without pay as well as TSA agents, which will very likely create flight disruptions; and pay will now stop for over 150,000 federal law enforcement officers.
“These are not just numbers and statistics, these are real Americans who have families at home. And I saw some Democrat members today saying they’re still going to accept their paychecks because they have three kids at home and they have mouths to feed. Well, so do these federal workers.”
Members of Congress, the president and federal judges must receive their salary under various provisions in the Constitution. While some lawmakers have publicly asked for their paychecks to be withheld until the government reopens, that’s not a legal option.
They could, however, donate their salaries to charity, which they can do regardless of whether the government is shut down.
‘Mafia-style threat’
The threat to fire federal workers en masse has already prompted a lawsuit in a Northern California district court, arguing the executive branch has no statutory authority to fire federal workers during a government shutdown.
There were roughly 2.2 million federal workers throughout the country as of July 1, with large portions of them living in California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Texas and Virginia. Roughly 30% of the workforce is made up of veterans.
Maryland’s Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen told States Newsroom on Wednesday morning that his office has not heard of any federal workers in his state being fired, and even if it were the case, “it’s illegal.”
“The president has no additional authority, in a shutdown, to fire people,” Van Hollen said. “This is just a mafia-style threat and blackmail.”
He didn’t detail what plans Democrats have to prevent those potential firings, but called them unlawful and pointed to the lawsuit filed in California by labor unions representing more than 1 million federal employees. Those unions are the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner made similar remarks, saying “the president has no enhanced powers during the shutdown so his ability to randomly and arbitrarily fire is not enhanced.”
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner speaks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday, Oct. 1 , 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer said Democrats “don’t have the high ground in this situation” and need to pass the GOP stopgap bill so that the government can reopen.
But Cramer said he’s concerned the White House budget office will go too far in implementing a shutdown, including mass layoffs, and could create challenges for Republican lawmakers.
“I worry a little bit that they could be counterproductive for us politically in the long run, because other things are going to require 60 votes again,” Cramer said.
Legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance toward final passage, a rule that typically leads to compromise and bipartisanship in that chamber.
Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said he hopes lawmakers can strike a deal to prevent the Trump administration from firing more federal workers. He said Congress has specifically carved out protections for federal workers, such as in 2019 when lawmakers included a provision to give back pay to furloughed federal workers.
“So it used to be we had to fight about back pay after the shutdown,” he said. “Now everybody’s guaranteed back pay, so they have that as a backstop that they can count (on).”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference Wednesday President Donald Trump’s administration “has been engaging in” the mass firings of federal workers since Trump took office on Jan 20.
“The Trump administration has been killing jobs,” the New York Democrat said. “This is a job-killing administration. Job creation is down, but you know what’s up? Costs. They promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down. Costs are going up.”
Here are department shutdown plans
The Trump administration has been steadily posting its plans for how many federal workers in each department will keep working without pay during a shutdown and which employees will be furloughed.
The plans, listed below, also detail which programs the Trump administration believes it can legally continue during a funding lapse without violating federal law.
They do not explain how many federal workers could be laid off and the White House declined to provide additional details about those plans or whether they’ll be posted publicly following the briefing,
The Trump administration has taken a new approach to letting people visiting their websites know about the shutdown, adding banners laying the blame at Democrats’ feet.
The Agriculture Department’s website states that “(d)ue to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”
The website for the Department of Housing and Urban Development includes a pop-up and a banner on the homepage that reads, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”
The Defense Department had a more measured message: “The most recent appropriations for the Department of War expired at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sept. 30, 2025. Military personnel will continue in a normal duty status, without pay, until such time as a continuing resolution or appropriations are passed by Congress and signed into law. Civilian personnel not engaged in excepted activities will be placed in a non-work, non-pay status.”
The message posted by the Department of Health and Human Services was similar.
“Mission-critical activities of HHS will continue during the Democrat-led government shutdown. Please use this site as a resource as the Trump Administration works to reopen the government for the American people.”
The messages could be in violation of a longstanding rider in federal spending law that states “(n)o part of any funds appropriated in this or any other Act shall be used by an agency of the executive branch … to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress, except in presentation to the Congress itself.”
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