Sen. says he’ll wear suit if GOP dodges shutdown

Sen. John Fetterman has offered to dress his age.

All House Republicans — “jagoffs,” as the 54-year-old called them Wednesday — have to do is ward off a partial government shutdown by Sept. 30 and back additional aid to Ukraine.

“If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week,” Fetterman (D-Pa.) posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Fetterman has been at the center of a sartorial furor since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) instructed the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms to stop enforcing the dress code requiring coats and ties for male senators on the floor.

That change, mockingly dubbed the “Fetterman Rule” by critics, means the formal requirement now only applies to male staffers.

Around the time Fetterman’s statement was posted Wednesday, he was presiding over the Senate while wearing shorts and a short-sleeve button-down shirt.

Since returning to the Senate from a six-week hiatus due to treatment for clinical depression, Fetterman has made almost no attempt to comply with the old dress code — shouting “Aye” or “Nay” from outside the Senate chamber in deference to the former rules.

A torrent of Republicans in Congress, including virtually the full Senate GOP conference in a Tuesday letter to Schumer, have blasted the change, contending it “debases” the institution.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for instance, joked this week about wearing a bikini for votes.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are embroiled in a bitter squabble over how to keep the government going past the end of this month.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has a four-seat majority and is facing around a dozen defections as he tries to move a stopgap spending bill through the chamber.

Many GOP hard-liners have also come out in opposition to the Biden administration’s request to approve more than $20 billion in additional aid to Ukraine.