WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate was drawing closer to a vote on legislation to end the shutdown on Monday after a small group of Senate Democrats broke a 40-day stalemate late Sunday evening and voted with Republicans to move forward with reopening the government.
It is unclear when the Senate will hold final votes on the bill, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hopes passage will take “hours not days.”
“The American people have suffered for long enough. Let’s not pointlessly drag this bill out,” he said as the Senate opened on Monday morning.
The legislation would still need to clear the House before the government could reopen. Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now” given travel delays, but he said he would issue an official notice for the House’s return once the Senate passes the legislation.
“We have to do this as quickly as possible,” Johnson said at a news conference. He has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a bill to continue government funding.
After weeks of negotiations, the moderate Senate Democrats agreed to reopen the government without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who have demanded that Republicans negotiate with them on the Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire Jan. 1. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised a mid-December vote on the subsidies, but there was no guarantee of success.
The final vote was 60-40. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York voted against moving ahead with the package, along with all but eight of his Democratic colleagues.
“We will not give up the fight,” Schumer said, adding that Democrats have now “sounded the alarm” on health care.
Still, an end to the shutdown could still be days away if any senators object and drag out the process. Thune was still working out concerns within his Republican conference about individual provisions in the underlying spending bills.
One of those Republicans, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, had threatened to object to a provision championed by his home state colleague, former GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, to prevent the sale of some hemp-based products. Paul said he was seeking an amendment to strip the language before a final vote.
President Donald Trump has not said whether he will sign the package, but told reporters at the White House Sunday evening that it “looks like we’re getting close to the shutdown ending.”
Five Democrats switch votes
A group of three former governors — New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine — broke the six-week stalemate on Sunday when they agreed to vote to advance three bipartisan annual spending bills and extend the rest of government funding until late January.
The legislation includes a reversal of the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. It also protects federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees they are paid once the shutdown is over.
In addition to Shaheen, King and Hassan, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, home to tens of thousands of federal workers, also voted in favor of moving forward on the agreement. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen also voted yes.
The moderates had expected a larger number of Democrats to vote with them as 10-12 Democratic senators had been part of the negotiations. But in the end, only five switched their votes — the exact number that Republicans needed. King, Cortez Masto and Fetterman had already been voting to open the government since Oct. 1.
The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things.
