After the Chicago Federation of Labor and four other influential Chicago advocacy groups released a rare public statement saying they were “profoundly disappointed” in Sen. Dick Durbin’s yes vote on a short-term Republican spending plan, the Illinois senator requested a meeting.
In a Zoom call with representatives from the CFL, Equality Illinois, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Personal PAC and Sierra Club Illinois, Durbin tried to explain the reasons behind his vote. Durbin has said that there was “very little” about the plan that he liked, but he believed it was the responsible thing to do to avoid a government shutdown.
Not all are satisfied with his explanation — the statement marks the beginning of a measure of resistance brewing against Durbin. Separately, a progressive youth climate group, Sunrise Illinois, plans to protest the second-highest-ranking Democratic senator at Federal Plaza on Thursday afternoon.
The statement against Durbin, and the protest, are uncommon public displays of disapproval for an 80-year-old senator who is deciding whether to run for a sixth six-year term. And while the Illinois congressional delegation, and other top Democrats who are preparing to run for his seat have chosen their words carefully, the pressure campaign from progressive groups is mounting.
The Sunrise Movement has been leading actions against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), with 11 protesters arrested last week while holding signs outside his locked Capitol office that read, “Schumer: Step up or step aside.” The group also planned to protest Schumer’s book tour, which was ultimately canceled over security concerns.
“There have been protests around the country, and I think the bottom line is that Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and the other Democrats who voted for Trump’s budget sold out our generation and displayed an immense amount of cowardice,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, political director for Sunrise. “The budget was one of the few pieces of leverage that Democrats had to stop all the attacks from the Trump administration on our climate, on our jobs, on our health, on our safety, and Chuck Schumer led those Democrats to essentially fold.”
Climate Defiance, another climate activist group, is also targeting Schumer with a week of protests next week.
“At the moment, we’re focused on calling on Schumer to step aside as minority leader, but we probably would be sympathetic to calls for Durbin to step down and let a new generation take the helm,” said Michael Greenberg, the founder of Climate Defiance.
Asked for comment on the Sunrise protest, a Durbin spokesperson defended the senator’s record and vowed that he will continue to fight against Trump’s policies.
“Senator Durbin has spent his 40+ years in Congress fighting for working families and against oligarchs, billionaires, and polluters. Those who argue otherwise do not know his record,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Sun-Times. “As Senator Durbin has noted in the weeks since the CR vote, there was very little about this CR that he liked — but there is even less he likes about shutting down the government. And he will continue to fight against Donald Trump’s reckless, and in many instances illegal, attempts to gut the federal government.”
The statement from advocacy groups was notable because the groups are longtime allies of the senator, and they will likely endorse and fund candidates in the 2026 Senate race and beyond. Besides voicing displeasure about his vote, the message also served as a warning that they’ll be closely watching his actions going forward, including in his role as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has voted to confirm controversial Trump appointees like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“There will be many more moments when we need Illinois Democrats to stand strong for our communities and our values,” the groups said. “We hope we can count on our delegation to stand up and fight back.”
Equality Illinois CEO Brian Johnson called the group’s inclusion in the statement “an extremely rare moment” for the organization.
“We did so because we think these are unprecedented times where we need boldness and new ways of pushing back,” Johnson said.
Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, said Durbin should be worried about his allies speaking out.
“I think he should. Yes. It’s not because we’re targeting him. He should be concerned that we’re questioning what he did on the first vote because it went against what everybody was asking for. And it seemed to me to be out of touch with where we are at as advocacy organizations, where most of the Democratic Party was,” Reiter said. “The best way to protect the public, protect the workers who provide the vital infrastructure for our country, is not to make deals with people who make deals to support the decimation of our federal infrastructure.”