A group of shutdown-weary Democratic senators voted with Republicans on Sunday night to advance a legislative vehicle to reopen the federal government and end the 40-day shutdown that has furloughed tens of thousands of workers and caused chaos at the nation’s airports.
The Senate voted 60-40 to approve a House-passed continuing resolution to reopen the government, taking a major first step toward ending the shutdown after a group of centrist Democrats negotiated a funding deal with Republican colleagues in the Senate and the White House.
Senate Democrats have blocked the same House-passed government funding bill 14 times before.
But a group of centrist and outgoing Democrats felt intense pressure to reopen the government after funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) expired on November 1 and air traffic controller staffing shortages led to significant delays at airports.
Eight Democrats voted to approve the House bill.
The group included Democratic Senate leader Dick Durbin (Ill.), who will retire at the end of the year, as well as Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who represents more than 144,000 workers in his home state.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, also voted yes. He worked closely with Shaheen and Hassan to draft the agreement to reopen the government.
Senators John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) also voted to end the shutdown, reflecting the position they have taken for weeks.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) joined her home state colleague Cortez Masto in voting for the measure.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) now plans to amend the legislative instrument passed by the House of Representatives with the compromise agreement negotiated with Shaheen, Hassan, King and others.
Shaheen, a member of the Budget Committee, worked with Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) on the funding legislation included in the package.
This proposal would fund military construction, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture and the Legislature through September 30, 2026.
It includes a stopgap measure to fund the rest of the government until January 30.
The compromise proposal includes language to retain more than 4,000 federal employees scheduled to be laid off during the shutdown, as well as language to prevent the Trump administration from laying off additional federal employees through workforce reductions (RIFs) for the duration of the newly drafted continuing resolution – through January 30.
Kaine helped negotiate protections for federal employees.
Passage of the bill sets the stage for the House of Representatives to return to Washington after a seven-week absence to vote on sending the legislation to President Trump’s desk.
As part of the broader agreement, Thune agreed to schedule a vote later this year on legislation to extend enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which are set to expire in January.
However, the Senate GOP leader did not guarantee that a bill extending the subsidies would pass the Senate or, if passed in the upper chamber, receive a vote in the House.
Hassan and King focused on getting Thune to agree to a vote in December to extend increased health insurance subsidies.
The agreement would ensure that a significant portion of the federal government is funded through September 30 through regular appropriations legislation, a top priority for Democrats, and it sets the stage for Congress to act on other regular appropriations bills to fund the War Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
It was put together after weeks of negotiations between Shaheen, Hassan and King and Republican members of the Budget Committee, as well as Senate GOP leadership and the Trump White House.
Sunday’s vote capped weeks of intense negotiations in which Democratic senators spent hours in the basement of the Capitol trying to find a way to end the standoff.
Several Democrats involved in those discussions, including Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who played a prominent role, ultimately voted against moving to the legislative tool to reopen the government.
Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who attended the sessions, also voted no.
Slotkin said she distanced herself from the negotiations when it became clear that the deal would not include language extending ACA subsidies in the government funding bill.
“I was there for many weeks, but in the last few weeks it changed. Last week it changed, so it wasn’t me anymore.” [involved] in the final,” she told reporters after a Democratic caucus meeting Sunday night.
“I’ve always said there needs to be something concrete done in health care, and it’s hard to imagine how this could happen,” she said.
