The top aide to Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García filed paperwork Monday to run for her boss’ seat — a move that signals the longtime Chicago Democrat might be preparing to retire from Congress.

Patty García submitted her nominating petitions in the final hour before the filing deadline, effectively closing the door to any additional Democratic challengers. As a result, the Democratic primary ballot will feature only her and Rep. García unless he drops out.

The two Garcías are not related. Neither returned requests for comment Monday.

One person close to Rep. García’s camp who was granted anonymity to discuss the situation ahead of a public announcement said the four-term incumbent does not plan to run.

If Rep. Garcia, 69, decides to withdraw, his chief of staff would automatically become the party’s nominee — and, in a safely blue district anchored on Chicago’s West Side, would almost certainly win the seat.

Garcia wouldn’t be the first Chicago politician to make such a move. In 2004, after winning his Democratic primary, Democratic Rep. Bill Lipinski chose not to seek reelection.

He convinced the Illinois Democratic Party to substitute his name on the ballot with that of his son, Dan Lipinski, who subsequently won the general election and served in Congress until 2021.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was “optimistic” an agreement can be reached this week to end the five-week shutdown as bipartisan rank-and-file talks make progress.

Thune, speaking to reporters, said the goal was to be able to send a revised stopgap bill to the House by the end of the week to reopen agencies.

“Obviously there were a lot of conversations over the weekend, and hopefully that will bring about the desired result,” Thune said.

The Senate is expected to extend the Nov. 21 expiration date of the House-passed funding punt for at least several more weeks. Thune previously told POLITICO that the deadline would need to be extended to at least January, but he hasn’t yet endorsed a specific timeline. GOP leaders are discussing a new deadline that would fall between late January and March.

Thune said on Monday that he is “open” to January but in listening mode as he faces competing demands within his conference.

“The longer sort of runway there is better,” he said.

The bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators has been discussing how to package a short-term funding patch that would reopen the government with a plan to move full-year funding bills and give Democrats a vote on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Senators involved in the talks believe they are making progress, and while Thune said he was personally “optimistic” a shutdown off-ramp could be imminent, he said he wasn’t yet “confident.”

Republicans are hoping that more Democrats will signal they are ready to end the shutdown after Tuesday’s off-year elections, including closely watched governor races in New Jersey and Virginia.

Democrats say it isn’t the elections that are influencing their thinking but rather the pain that has been inflicted on Americans, including expected delays in federal food aid this month.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters Monday he also sensed senators are getting closer to an exit strategy but said he wasn’t yet sure what that would be. Democrats have demanded negotiations on health care and so far have rejected the offer of a vote absent a bipartisan deal.

A bipartisan quartet of House lawmakers released a “statement of principles” Monday for a potential compromise on an extension of Obamacare subsidies, which would include a two-year sunset and an income cap for eligibility.

The compromise framework from Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Jeff Hurd of Colorado, and Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi of New York and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, is the first public tangible offering on health care policy since the government shutdown began 33 days ago.

Democrats are continuing to insist that any deal to end the shutdown involve an agreement around extending expanded tax credits for Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. But GOP leaders and President Donald Trump have refused to negotiate on health care until after the government is reopened.

The new blueprint is a sign the partisan freeze is thawing among some factions on Capitol Hill — and that frustration over the impasse is growing. Moderate Republicans in the House are especially losing patience, eager to address the health care issue while Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the chamber out of session since September.

“Congress is gridlocked, and too many Americans have lost faith that we can work together,” Bacon, Hurd, Suozzi and Gottheimer said in a statement. “Our hope is that this shared statement of principles will inspire bipartisan collaboration across Washington and help get Congress back to work for the American people.”

Bacon, in an interview Monday, said he hopes that senators — especially appropriators working on bipartisan talks around full-year government funding bills — will use this plan as fodder to negotiate an ACA extension framework.”I’m all for breaking the logjam,” Bacon said. “A lot of Republicans don’t want to see these premiums go up either.”

The four lawmakers are endorsing a two-year extension of the enhanced tax credits and an income limit on who can qualify for them, which would range from $200,000 to $400,000.

In a bid to appease conservatives who believe that the credits are wasteful and rife with fraud, the bipartisan coalition calls for both parties to identify ways to crack down on agents and brokers who engage in fraudulent practices when enrolling people in Obamacare health plans.

The lawmakers also want to ensure that enrollees are notified of the value of the premium tax credits and that ACA marketplaces track down “ghost beneficiaries” who may be improperly enrolled in the plans.

Bacon has hammered Democrats for not supporting the House-passed stopgap spending measure but said Monday the minority party needs an off-ramp over their ACA demands amid the shutdown, and his proposal with Hurd, Suozzi and Gottheimer could offer that path. He added that such a plan would likely need to be attached to the long-term government funding bills members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee are continuing to work through along the sidelines of shutdown talks.

But it’s unlikely the proposal would go far enough for hard-liners who want deeper reforms as part of any ACA extension — not to mention those who are opposed to any subsidy extension at all. The compromise plan is silent on whether it would restrict the ACA plans from covering procedures that would end pregnancies — a major demand of the anti-abortion lobby.

And while all four lawmakers are part of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, the plan failed to receive the official support of that full caucus, according to two people granted anonymity to share private deliberations. Members of the group had been discussing pieces of the reforms — including a $200,000 income cap for the full subsidies — for several weeks, as Blue Light News has reported.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, the GOP co-chair for the group, said in an interview in late-September he wanted an ACA deal before open enrollment started last Saturday, a deadline that came and went without Democratic and Republican leaders even talking about the topic. In some states, enrollees are now seeing theirout-of-pocket premiums for 2026 skyrocket by more than 100 percent.

Notably, however, Fitzpatrick didn’t sign onto the plan released Monday, whereas the Democratic co-chair, Suozzi, forged ahead with Bacon, Hurd and Gottheimer. Fitzpatrick has yet to fully review the plan, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Senate Republicans, including Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, have also been quietly workshopping their own ideas for a compromise on the subsidies, but have yet to indicate they are close to anything that could be made public.

Other vulnerable House Republicans, like Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia, is a co-sponsor with Suozzi and others on legislation they introduced prior to the start of the shutdown that would extend the subsidies for one year.