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Steyer Says He Won’t Donate to Democrats After They Caved on Shutdown

Tom Steyer / Getty Images
January 25, 2018

Billionaire Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer said he plans to withhold donations to the party in 2018 in response to Democratic senators' handling of the brief government shutdown.

Senate Democrats refused to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government Friday because the GOP-backed measure did not include protections for those formerly covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But on Monday, Democrats agreed to a deal with Republicans to pass the spending bill while punting on the issue of the so-called "Dreamers."

In an interview with Fortune, Steyer expressed his frustration with that move.

"I don’t have a litmus test on any one thing, but I do have a litmus test for elected officials standing on principle and doing the right thing, looked at holistically," he said.

"And I want to say that after the DACA vote, I have decided not to give anything to the national party committees," Steyer added.

He went on to say lawmakers should be standing up for the Dreamers, those brought the the United States illegally as children and granted the right to live, study, and work in America under the Obama-era executive order.

"If you made a commitment to the Dreamers and you care about 800,000 young people who are legal residents of the United States in a program that the president has promised twice we should continue, then we should be standing up for them," he said.

When pressed by Fortune, Syteyer said the funding freeze applied to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Steyer did not say whether he planned to withhold funding for individual Democrats as well, nor whether he'd withhold funds specifically for the Senate Democrats who voted to reopen the government.

Watch the interview:

Published under: Tom Steyer