Politics
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire voted to move to end the shutdown. But her daughter Stefany Shaheen, a congressional candidate in their state, sharply criticized the deal.
It’s not great when your defiant kid says you are wrong.
It’s a little bit worse when you are in the U.S. Senate and your defiant kid is running for Congress.
Stefany Shaheen is running for a House seat in New Hampshire on a health care platform and with a boost from her family name and the legacy of her mother, Jeanne Shaheen, the state’s former governor and now its senior senator.
So when the elder Shaheen negotiated to move toward ending the government shutdown without a Republican agreement to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats have demanded, the younger Shaheen had a problem.
“We need to both end this shutdown and extend the ACA tax credits,” Stefany Shaheen said in a statement on social media. “Otherwise, no deal.”
In an interview Monday morning, she said that “clearly we had different approaches here,” adding: “I can’t speak for her. I think she did what she believes is right.”
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol later Monday, Jeanne Shaheen said: “My daughter’s independent, she’s always been independent. That’s why she’s going to be a great congresswoman.”
She added, “And the messages from New Hampshire have been very positive.”
Democrats are universally furious at the eight senators who helped broker the shutdown-ending deal without any concessions, as well as at the party’s leadership over a perception that it failed to stop the deal. No prominent Democrats have defended the deal. There are calls for political retribution and resignations.
Supporting her mother’s vote would have left the younger Shaheen in a much weaker spot for her primary race to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Chris Pappas. (He is running for the Senate seat now occupied by Jeanne Shaheen, who is retiring.)
In the interview, Stefany Shaheen said she had talked with her mother about the Senate discussions but declined to get into details. She would not say if she thought her mother, 78, would have voted the same way had she been running for reelection. “All I can do is stand up and say what I believe is right,” Stefany Shaheen said.
Next door in Maine, Angus King III, the Democratic son of another senator who negotiated the Democratic retreat, is in his own primary race for governor. The younger King has been quiet so far on the deal.
Maura Sullivan, another Democrat running for Pappas’ seat, was less muted about Jeanne Shaheen’s role.
“I didn’t serve our country in the Marines to watch leaders cave when health care for 9 million Americans is on the line,” she wrote on social media. “Democrats should be standing firm, not surrendering when Americans’ health is at stake.”
Another New Hampshire Democrat in the race was even less subtle.
“Why did your mom vote for it?” Heath Howard, a state representative, wrote in response to Stefany Shaheen’s post, adding in another post that he was “ashamed” that the state’s two senators had voted for the deal.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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