1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

The House should be doing the People's work. Congressional work has always required conferencing, negotiations, and consensus-building, not siloed fiefdoms pretending our fellow Americans are enemies who cannot be engaged.  For the entire year, we have been listening to Republicans in Congress talk about how everyone in government has only one purpose: to fulfill the President's agenda. Senators and Representatives have abdicated their responsibilities to apply independent judgment or to consider their obligations to constituents back home. Above all, Congressional Republicans have abandoned foundational expectations that governance requires negotiation and consensus-building, with relationships across the aisle making disciplined compromises possible for the benefit of the nation.  Republicans control both houses of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, so your leadership's whining about how Democrats are responsible for anything that goes wrong rings hollow. The rest of the nation swore no fealty oaths to follow a false king while abandoning our principles, values, and institutions. Unless the Republican Speaker of the House recalls the House to begin negotiating in earnest for an end to the government shutdown, it remains obvious. This Republican shutdown is a clear result of the GOP refusing to govern, just shouting the King's orders louder every time the minority withholds consent to be abused.