Why the Biggest Federal Worker Union Broke With Democrats on the Shutdown
The largest federal employee union has long endorsed Democrats. Its leader explains why he just broke ranks over the shutdown.
AFGE National President Everett Kelley speaks alongside other AFGE union members during a rally demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency address a staffing shortage outside EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., Feb. 15, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
By LUKE MULLINS10/30/2025 01:00 PM EDT
Luke Mullins is a contributing writer at POLITICO Magazine, where he covers the people and institutions that control Washington’s levers of power. He has been a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine, and he’s also written for The Atlantic, Esquire and Mother Jones, among other publications. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @lmullinsdc.
After weeks of political stalemate, Washington took notice on Monday when the country’s largest federal workers’ union urged Congress to bring to an immediate end the nearly month-long government shutdown. Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees described the shutdown as “an avoidable crisis” and effectively called on Democrats to join Republicans in voting to end it right away.
The statement — from a union that has long endorsed Democrats — represented a dramatic break from what had been the party line: No continuing resolution without a vote to extend health care subsidies. On Capitol Hill, Republicans were gleeful. Democrats, meanwhile, were stuck trying to balance their professed love for hard-hit federal workers against vocal demands from their base calling on the party to stick to its guns.
