Senate Votes to Put Congress on Path Toward Ending Government Shutdown

A bipartisan group of senators voted 60-40 to approve a key procedural measure that puts legislation reopening the government on track to pass the Senate.

Eight Democrat senators—Illinois’ Dick Durbin, Maine’s Angus King, Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, and Virginia’s Tim Kaine—joined 52 Republicans in the procedural vote.

Sunday’s late-night vote may begin the process to reopen the government, but it will likely take at least a day.

Before the government can reopen, the Senate must vote to approve the measure with a simple majority—all but assured after obtaining the 60 votes needed on the procedural test—and then the House must return to Washington to pass the legislation.

“I am optimistic that after almost six weeks of this shutdown, we will finally be able to end it,” Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said before the vote.

“Part of the deal is a vote on the ACA subsidies,” Angus King, a Maine Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, told reporters Sunday upon emerging from a meeting of Senate Democrats. He referred to the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and the extra COVID-19 pandemic-era subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year without further congressional action.

King cited “the length of the shutdown” as a reason Democrats had reconsidered voting to fund the government.

Kaine revealed some elements of the deal on X.

“This deal guarantees a vote to extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Republicans weren’t willing to do,” Kaine wrote.

He also said the legislation “will protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay, as required by a law I got passed in 2019.”

Durbin noted that the current bill “is not the same one we’ve voted down 14 times.”

“Republicans finally woke up and realized their Groundhog Day needed to end,” he wrote on X. “This bill is not perfect, but it takes important steps to reduce their shutdown’s hurt. Not only would it fully fund SNAP for the year ahead, but it would reverse the mass firings the Trump Administration ordered throughout the shutdown.”

King, along with Shaheen and Hassan, negotiated the deal with Republican senators, sources told Politico.

The proposed legislation would fund all agencies through Jan. 30, and it would fund some projects for the full fiscal year until Oct. 1, 2026, according to Politico. The package includes full fiscal year funding for the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects, and the operations of Congress.

As Kaine noted, Thune has reportedly promised Senate Democrats a vote in December to extend the COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that will otherwise expire at the end of the year.

While Thune promised a vote on Obamacare subsidies, Republicans seem unlikely to support them.

“I’m not going to continue this windfall profit for insurance companies another day, much less another year,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Friday shortly after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded the extension of the credits on the Senate floor in exchange for reopening the government.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., has also repeatedly said he can make no guarantee of an outcome on the premium tax credit issue, arguing it is a complex issue that will require discussion among members, but only after the government reopens.

The government has been shut down for 40 days, since Oct. 1, the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

Many Senate Democrats took to X to state their opposition to the package.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., announced her opposition.

“Since July, I have been clear: to earn my vote, Republicans would have to do something to bring down the cost of health care for working and middle-class Michiganders,” she wrote. “The promise of a vote in over a month does not meet that threshold.” She claimed that President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has “plunged America into a health care crisis.”

Republicans, however, argue that the increase in health care premiums reflects the weaknesses of Obamacare.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., took a similar tack to Slotkin.

“I have been clear on this from the beginning: I will not turn my back on the 24 million Americans who will see their premiums more than double if we don’t extend these tax credits,” Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s other Democrat senator, posted on X.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also announced her opposition, calling a vote for the bill “a mistake.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, R-Calif., called for Senate Democrats to reject Schumer and choose a new leader. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” he posted.

The post Senate Votes to Put Congress on Path Toward Ending Government Shutdown appeared first on The Daily Signal.