Congress

How Senate Republicans won the last vote to end the shutdown

Published

10 months ago

November 11, 2025

Tim Kaine privately laid out weeks ago what he needed in return for his vote to end the government shutdown: a “moratorium on mischief.”

That’s what the Virginia Democrat told Senate Majority Leader John Thune that any deal had to include — undoing the firings President Donald Trump and budget director Russ Vought had carried out since the start of the shutdown, as well as protections against future firings of federal workers, who make up a significant portion of Kaine’s constituency.

It was a demand that Kaine wasn’t sure the White House and Trump would agree to fully meet until the final hours before the nail-biter vote Sunday that cemented a bipartisan breakthrough.

“There was a lot of resistance but they needed my vote,” Kaine said about the GOP reaction to his demands, adding that negotiators “reached a meeting of the minds” at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday.

About five hours later, the Senate voted to move forward with legislation ensuring any federal workers laid off during the shutdown are rehired and blocking future reductions in force, or RIFs, through at least the end of a new Jan. 30 stopgap spending bill.

Most of the attention to the six weeks of shutdown negotiation centered on Democrats’ demands surrounding health care, particularly the extension of key expiring health insurance subsidies. But the RIF language was the final piece that helped clinch the deal, according to interviews with six people involved in the bipartisan negotiations.

With only eight members of the Democratic caucus voting to advance the bill — the bare minimum for it to move forward — satisfying Kaine was critical to ending the conflict largely on the GOP’s terms while also giving Democrats, who have long worried about Trump taking a sledgehammer to the federal government, something to hold up as a consolation prize.

Kaine was, by his own admission, a latecomer to the bipartisan talks, only joining late last week. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) began talking with Republicans the first night of the shutdown, by Shaheen’s account. The core group of negotiators included Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.), among others.

Shaheen, asked about the RIF language, said that it was “something the White House put on the table weeks ago as something they were willing to take a look at.” Britt also said in an interview the idea was in the mix as she, Collins, Shaheen and others discussed possible paths to reopen the government.

But while senators spent weeks quietly circling around the same rough framework, they weren’t able to secure a breakthrough.

Things began to shift late last week, as Democrats’ elation over their big Election Day wins began to wear off and the reality of a record-setting shutdown — including unpaid federal workers, worsening air travel delays and missing food aid — began to set in.

Kaine gave a proposal Friday to Thune’s team and Collins, he recounted in an interview Monday. That sparked around-the-clock negotiations over the RIF language over the weekend, including direct talks starting Sunday morning between Kaine and Britt, an appropriator and key emissary between the various negotiators and the White House.

“I think I got off the phone at 12:30 a.m. [Sunday], I think Susan Collins was up for an hour past that and then at 5 a.m. I started getting text messages about this,” Britt said. “Tim Kaine and I talked a number of times both on the phone and in person.”

While senators were hammering out the RIF language, Collins and other appropriators were working to lock down another piece of the shutdown puzzle: a three-bill funding package that included money for veterans programs, food aid and other agencies, as well as Congress itself. Agreeing to the three bills, Democrats and Republicans believe, was key to helping rebuild enough trust to notch a broader deal to end the shutdown.

Senators and staff “worked night and day, literally,” Collins said Monday night after the bill passed. “It shows the Senate can work, we can produce the results that are needed.”

At the same time, Shaheen, King and Hassan led the effort to privately persuade their fellow members of the Senate Democratic Caucus that the agreement was the best offer they were going to get from Republicans, who hadn’t shifted in six weeks on their refusal to negotiate over the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

In the end, that wasn’t enough to get most members of the Senate Democratic caucus — including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told members involved in the talks about two weeks ago he could not support the deal they were sketching out, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss details of the negotiations.

Schumer continued privately urging them to hold out even as they moved to concede this week, the person added. But the senators had seen enough.

“This was the option on the table,” Shaheen said Monday. She added that some Democratic colleagues who voted against the deal privately told her, “I’m so glad you did that, but I’m not going to vote with you.”

With Thune and Schumer at loggerheads, senators on both sides engaged in on-and-off shuttle diplomacy.

Britt, notably, spoke with Schumer late last month — a conversation aimed, she said, at making sure he was open to allowing the trio of full-year spending bills to move forward. Shaheen, Hassan and King met with Thune, who pledged that he would give them a vote on an ACA extension bill that they would have until mid-December to draft.

“We sat across from him, we looked him eye to eye,” Shaheen said about the talks with Thune.

The trio met repeatedly with each other, as well as a group of roughly a dozen Senate Democrats that eventually included Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the party’s whip and highest-ranking Democrat who backed the effort. Durbin said he also spoke with Thune on Sunday, telling the South Dakota Republican that “I was counting on him to keep his word” on the ACA vote.

“He assured me he would,” Durbin added.

Thune publicly reiterated his commitment to the vote Monday, though he stopped well short of predicting a breakthrough.

“I think there’s some goodwill on this issue,” he told reporters. “We’ll see if something lands.”

On the Republican side of the aisle, Collins kept in close contact with senators as she worked to lock down the appropriations bills and close out a deal that would reopen the government.

Collins had privately pitched a six-point plan for ending the shutdown, and the eventual deal largely aligned with what she set out: enacting the three-bill “minibus,” teeing up another package of full-year bills, guaranteeing back pay for furloughed employees, promising the ACA vote, beefing up security funding for lawmakers and passing a stopgap bill to reopen all agencies.

Trump never engaged directly with Democrats after an unfruitful late-September meeting with the top party leaders. But GOP senators, including Britt, made sure the White House was on the same page as what was being discussed among the lawmakers. Britt identified Vice President JD Vance, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair and director of legislative affairs James Braid as the key officials who helped land the shutdown agreement.

Vance, Britt added, told her “whatever you need, just let me know.”

The open line to the White House came in handy in the final 48 hours, as Britt, Kaine and other senators hashed out the final terms of the RIF agreement.

“Obviously the White House set the framework, and Senator Kaine knew what he needed to achieve,” Britt said, describing her role as “being a conduit … and trying to make sure nothing got lost in translation.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

How Talarico is countering Trump’s midterms convention

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

James Talarico is planning to counterprogram President Donald Trump’s GOP midterms convention in Dallas with a focus on affordability.

The idea from the Texas Democratic Senate candidate and seminarian: host a statewide “Love Thy Neighbor” food drive to offer a contrast with Republicans coming to town and highlight the high cost of groceries, according to plans shared first with Blue Light News.

“Next week, billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians will gather at a convention in Dallas to clink champagne glasses and toast their own corruption. They’re paying $20,000 for entry to a Billionaire Ball celebrating corrupt tariffs, billionaire tax breaks, and a new forever war that are all driving grocery costs through the roof,” Talarico said in a statement to Blue Light News. “We’ll be doing something different. We’re bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together to collect groceries for our neighbors who have been screwed over by corrupt politicians.”

The campaign said it will “mobilize volunteers to collect, sort, and donate groceries for middle class Texans struggling with the high price of groceries.” The event will last from Sunday, Sept. 6 through Wednesday, Sept. 9 — the same day the GOP convention kicks off.

Talarico is also expected to field media interviews in a large warehouse near the convention.

“Texans across the political spectrum will come together to build community, show up for their neighbors, and take power back for working people,” the campaign said in a statement.

A recent poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research poll released last week showed Talarico leading ,his opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Trump this week said he would campaign for Paxton soon.

Congress

‘I don’t think anyone is really comfortable’: Democrat leading on AI raises alarms at Trump, Zuckerberg call

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House Democrat trying to lead her party on artificial intelligence policy sent a warning shot Friday to tech CEOs trying to undermine efforts to regulate the fast-growing technology.

In an interview, Rep. Lori Trahan raised alarm bells over a POLITICO report detailing attempts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally discourage President Donald Trump from moving ahead with plans to establish an independent AI regulator modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable when they see tech executives who are sitting on the stage at the president’s inauguration, and have had to pay millions of dollars to this fund and that fund, calling the shots,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Allowing Zuckerberg to call the shots on the proposed AI commission would be tantamount to “a complete abdication of Congress,” Trahan continued. She also suggested would use her perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to work with other Democrats to haul in industry executives like Zuckerberg to testify, should Democrats win back the House majority in the midterms.

“Congress’ job is to do oversight and to have those hearings,” she said. “And I think we would learn a lot from those hearings so that we can put pen to paper on thoughtful proposals. So yes, there have been a number of people, myself included, who have called for those hearings, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.”

Trahan is poised to be a major player in the coming weeks and months when it comes to AI, especially if Democrats prevail in the November elections and are forced to solidify a position on the subject; the party is currently all over the map.

Unlike other Democrats who have retreated to their corners to work on partisan proposals, Trahan has gone out on a limb by crossing the aisle to broker a deal on a bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) — a package that was originally met with disdain by members of both parties.

She announced this week she would opt out of a run for a place in House Democratic leadership after being widely expected to make a play in the next Congress — in part, she said, to continue working on AI issues.

But Trahan’s comments Friday illustrate the deep distrust among Democrats, herself included, over the GOP approach to AI regulation — from Republicans waffling on whether they support the proliferation of data centers to Trump’s recent call with Zuckerberg.

Her calls are consistent with left-leaning members like Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been at the forefront of the most aggressive proposals to crack down on top tech companies.

“The CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI say that cutting edge AI could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons,” Casar said Thursday on X in response to the Blue Light News report. “But Trump is conspiring with billionaires for this technology to be regulated like … Hollywood movies.”

Trahan said Friday that “reasonable people can disagree on what regulatory construct we come up with” governing development and use of AI.

But, she added, “what I don’t think the American people agree with is that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump are going to figure that out on a phone call.”

Congress

House Dem election leader’s message to states: Count faster

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.

“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.

The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.

Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.

“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”

Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.

Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.

“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”