Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and his Republican leadership team are looking for novel ideas to end the 38-day government shutdown became clear on Friday that tactics to pressure Democrats to vote for a funding bill passed by the House have so far failed.
Senate Republicans are discussing various ideas to break the stalemate, such as voting on a novel Senate-drafted bill that would fund a immense portion of the federal government through fiscal year 2026.
That approach, advocated by members of the Appropriations Committee, would require voting on three regular budget bills that passed the Senate earlier this year with sturdy bipartisan support and were considered by House Republicans.
Another idea promoted by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is to introduce a Republican-drafted bill aimed at reducing rising health care costs — thereby addressing the problem at the heart of the fight over government funding.
A third proposal, touted by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), is to encourage the Trump administration to explore federally funded projects in Democratic states like California and New York to provide additional funding to pay energetic military personnel and air traffic controllers during the shutdown.
Senate Republican leaders are looking for novel tactics to end the shutdown as rank-and-file GOP lawmakers tire of repeated votes on a House-passed, clean-cut, continuing resolution to fund the government through Nov. 21.
Senate Democrats have blocked the House-passed bill 14 times, and Thune has failed to augment the number of Democrats supporting the measures despite repeated pleas to his colleagues.
“There is no reason to vote on the same things we have voted on in the past just to do it again,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters Friday.
So far, only three members of the Senate Democratic caucus have voted for a neat, continuing resolution that does not contain language extending expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies: Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led by Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine), have sought to break the stalemate by trying to get Democrats to vote for a “minibus” appropriations package that would fund military construction, Veterans Affairs, the Agriculture Department and the Legislature for the 2026 fiscal year.
The chairmen of the Senate and House budget committees met Friday afternoon to put the finishing touches on the package, hoping it can be approved quickly in the House if passed by the Senate.
“From my perspective, I still think it’s a viable option to bring some of our co-owners over to the other side [of the aisle] to join us in voting for the CR by attaching the three-bill minibus and going to the budget legislation,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a Budget Committee member who has been heavily involved in discussions with Democratic centrists.
Hoeven acknowledged that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) would not agree to a budget package without an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies.
“The leadership is entrenched and the American people are paying the price because of Schumer and the leadership, and obviously the people who want to run for president are using that as leverage,” he said. “I don’t know if their leadership will ever materialize, but I think there are practical Democrats who want to join us.”
Thune told reporters on Friday afternoon that he hoped to publish the text of the revised budget package in time to take action over the weekend. He added that it was unclear what the chamber would vote on over the weekend.
“We’re here and we’re going to see if something comes together that we can vote on,” Thune said. “It remains to be seen.”
Schumer on Friday afternoon offered Republicans are offering a counterproposal to reopen the government that would include the GOP’s idea of tying the minibus to a rolling resolution to fund the government through December or January.
But Schumer insisted that such a package must include a clear one-year extension of ACA subsidies. To sweeten the deal for Republicans, the Democratic leader proposed creating a bipartisan committee to negotiate long-term health care affordability reforms.
Thune and other Senate Republicans immediately dismissed it as a “non-starter”.
“Anyone who follows this knows this is a non-starter,” Thune told reporters. “There is no option. Extending ObamaCare is a matter of negotiation. We will negotiate that as soon as the government opens up.”
Graham, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called the proposed one-year extension of the subsidies “terrible” and said Republicans will soon unveil their own plan to curb rising insurance costs.
“We will not continue for a year to lavish insurance companies with taxpayer money to produce worse results. Since 2010, the stock prices of the country’s five largest health insurance companies have skyrocketed,” he said. “Instead of lowering people’s premiums, they went up over 150 percent. There’s a better way to do it.”
Asked what Republicans would do next after Democrats blocked a proposal to pay key federal workers during the shutdown, Graham said his colleagues would try to take offense on health care.
“We’re putting together a proposal to show that we can get better results than giving insurance companies a lot of money,” he said.
Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, says Trump should move more aggressively to slash Democrats’ priorities, reflecting growing frustration among Senate Republicans over Democrats’ refusal to budge on a funding bill.
“The offer from Chuck Schumer and the Democrats is complete nonsense,” he said, warning that the shutdown would cause “serious air travel problems” and “security issues.”
“I will lobby the administration … to go to California, to New York, to every state and every Democrat that continues to shut down the government, find all the pet projects, find all the priorities and take them away,” he said.
“We have to pay people,” he said, referring to air traffic controllers and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
He called Senate Democrats, who have repeatedly blocked the House-passed funding bill, “a bunch of kamikaze pilots trying to burn this whole place down.”
As the deadlock continues, Senate GOP members are preparing to stay in town for the foreseeable future until a deal is reached. A Senate Republican told The Hill that there was “unanimous support” in the conference for staying in town until a resolution was passed.
But they are still concerned about what they viewed as an unforced error by Trump earlier in the week when he blamed the shutdown for the GOP’s impoverished showing in numerous key races Tuesday night – a move that gave Democrats a boost at a crucial point in bipartisan negotiations.
“It was like taking a few cans of gasoline and putting it on top of the pile of energy that the Democrats are running with,” the GOP member said. “We need to coordinate messages better.”
Democrats said Friday evening that they are sticking with their proposal for the foreseeable future, despite swift rejection from Republicans.
“We’re going to keep pushing this forward for a while,” Senator Gary Peters (Democrat of Michigan), who has been a key figure in the bipartisan discussions, told reporters.
