Congress

Shutdown set to break record as Senate Democrats agonize over endgame

Published

11 months ago

November 4, 2025

With just hours until the government shutdown becomes the longest in U.S. history, Senate Democrats privately agonized behind closed doors Tuesday about bringing it to an end.

A two-hour-plus lunch meeting ended without a clear consensus on an endgame for the 35-day standoff, even after several senators involved in increasingly serious bipartisan negotiations laid out their thinking during the lunch, according to multiple attendees.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emerged from the long meeting and signaled that his party isn’t yet ready to surrender — guaranteeing the shutdown would surpass the roughly 34-day, 20-hour shutdown that ended in January 2019.

“Families are opening their health care bills and wondering how they’ll pay them. That’s the reality. So we’re going to keep fighting day after day, vote after vote, until Republicans put working families ahead of the wealthy few,” Schumer told reporters.

But two people granted anonymity to discuss caucus dynamics estimate that about a dozen Democrats now privately believe it’s time to reopen the government and then use the coming weeks to increase pressure on Republicans to address their core demand: an extension of key health insurance subsidies.

Pressed on where his caucus stands after the long lunch, Schumer said only, “We’re exploring all the options.”

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said he thought there was some progress made during the lengthy meeting. But he acknowledged a crucial “difference in opinion” remains over whether Democrats should vote to reopen the government without a concrete legislative plan to extend the subsidies for those who buy plans on Affordable Care Act exchanges.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said the senators involved in the bipartisan talks “made their case” but added “you need to have an agreement and not just discussions.”

He added, “When and whether we get there is an unknown.”

The note of caution and uncertainty stood in counterpoint to the rising expectations among Republicans that the shutdown could be put on a glide path toward resolution later this week.

Several Senate Democrats emerged from the lunch grim-faced and tight-lipped, a shift from the start of the shutdown when Democrats were unified behind a common message: that Republicans had to at least negotiate with them in order to win their votes.

“What’s the point of being in the Senate minority if you don’t use your power to get something?” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview, accusing Republicans of “basic bullying tactics.”

But the weeks of political trench warfare have taken a toll on senators — not to mention the rising toll of the shutdown on their constituents. President Donald Trump threatened to defy a court order to pay federal food aid Tuesday before his administration contradicted that message. Meanwhile, his Transportation secretary warned of mounting travel disruptions in the coming week as unpaid air traffic controllers and security officers call off work.

The Democratic lunch started just after the Senate rejected a House-passed stopgap bill for a 14th time. As in the previous 13 votes, only Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada broke ranks with fellow Democrats, as did Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

While the vote count remained static, there has been palpable movement among the rank-and-file Democrats who have been negotiating with Republicans over a shutdown solution that would fall short of the demands most of their colleagues have been making for more than a month.

A group of about 10 Senate Democrats met in a Capitol basement hideaway Monday night, a gathering first reported by Blue Light News. Some members of the group met again through the day Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday that he has spoken with rank-and-file Democrats, including in a meeting last week with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, as well as with King. They discussed the various pieces that would have to come together to reopen the government, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the talks.

“There’s a line of communication,” Thune said.

The bipartisan discussions are focused around a revised stopgap spending bill that would keep agencies open until at least December, as well as passage of the full-year Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-VA and Legislative Branch spending bills. Those two pieces could be advanced together, with a Republican guarantee that Democrats would get a future vote to extend the insurance subsidies once the shutdown is over.

Some Democrats, including Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, are pushing for Speaker Mike Johnson to also guarantee a vote — something the Louisiana Republican has been loath to do as he argues Democrats need to reopen the government first.

Others want Trump to get directly involved. Republicans have said Trump will meet with Democrats on health care but only after the government reopens.

“President Trump should bring people to the White House instead of having parties in Mar-a-Lago, and make sure that people’s insurance benefits are not going to more than double and get everything opened up,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), referring to a lavish Halloween party Trump attended at his Florida resort.

Trump has shown signs he has grown impatient with the shutdown, repeatedly prodding Republicans in recent days to kill the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule and take action on party lines. Senate Republicans have been invited to have breakfast with Trump Wednesday, where the topic could be broached, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private invitation.

But Republicans have other internal tensions to resolve — not least of which is the widespread opposition among conservatives to any extension of the crucial Obamacare tax credits.

Several House Republicans raised concerns on a private call Tuesday morning with Johnson and other leaders that Republicans should not help bail out Democrats from the failures of their 2010 health law, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the conversation.

They are also locked in an intense internal struggle over how long to schedule a funding punt. The conflict played out inside the Senate GOP’s own Tuesday lunch, according to two people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) strongly pushed for her preferred expiration date of Dec. 19, while hard-liners including Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) pushed for a deadline in early 2026.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), another appropriator who is advocating for a December end date with Collins, also clashed with Scott — an eyebrow-raising development that led one GOP senator to note that Republicans clearly needed “a longer family discussion” about the issue.

Several GOP senators also said during the lunch and in other recent meetings that any promise to Democrats regarding a vote on the ACA subsidies should also require a vote on a Republican alternative. That legislation would likely involve guardrails favored by conservatives, including a crackdown on so-called phantom enrollees, minimum out-of-pocket premiums and new abortion funding restrictions, among other provisions.

“If there is going to be a vote on a Democrat proposal, then there will have to be an offsetting Republican proposal as an alternative,” a second GOP senator said.

Mia McCarthy, Calen Razor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Jennifer Scholtes and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Congress

College sports bill moves forward in Senate with Democratic support

Published

9 hours ago

September 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A group of Senate Democrats on Tuesday voted with most Republicans after months of painstaking negotiations to help advance a sweeping college athletics bill.

An initial procedural vote on the measure led by Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) moved forward on a 74-24 vote, despite opposition on both sides of the aisle. The move tees up more floor debate and a final passage vote before lawmakers leave to campaign for the midterms.

Cantwell said that even though the bill wasn’t perfect, it would help ensure the name, image and likeness rights of student athletes, among other protections.

“I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the essential,” Cantwell said on the floor ahead of the vote. “This is the last best chance to save college sports and put HBCUs at the table where the future gets decided,” she said, referring to historically Black colleges and universities.

The chamber is expected to stay for the entirety of its planned three-week session now that senators opened a path to take up the bill, according to four Senate aides granted anonymity to discuss planning. Fast-tracking the legislation would depend on a deal between all 100 senators, which would require overcoming holdouts’ opposition.

Supporters of the bill behind the scenes have been fielding concerns from senators and a coalition of sports, civil rights and labor groups who’ve criticized the measure’s planned regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry.

Democrats like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) spent weeks trying to convince his colleagues to “step back and oppose” the bill in its current form, saying in a press conference with AFL-CIO this week it would “preserve a system of exploitation that is damaging our athletes.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who voted “no,” told reporters Tuesday the bill “falls way short.”

“It really jeopardizes college athletes’ health and safety. It gives broad-based antitrust exemption to the NCAA and gets very little back from it,” Booker added, referring to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. “It is a bill that really, unfortunately, as one of the handful of college football players in this place, it does not cure what are some of the biggest things that are really threatening college players.”

Some Democrats who supported the bill, including New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, cited concerns from student athletes and coaches in their home states as the reason why.

“Student athletes and others wanted to make sure that the conferences that they were playing for were getting treated in a fair way,” he said. “Go talk to athletes from our schools and across the country and see what this means to them, not just athletes from the super conferences around America.”

The legislation has the backing of President Donald Trump, major sports conferences like the Big Ten and Southeastern, student sports organizations and HBCUs.

Several Republicans who were on the fence earlier about the bill, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), were convinced to support it after Cruz added language to clarify that it would not preempt state laws on transgender athletes’ participation on women’s sports teams.

Others Republicans like Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he couldn’t support advancing the measure because “there’s too much government involvement in it.”

Congress

Rebel Democrats again help House GOP advance floor agenda

Published

10 hours ago

September 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A pair of House Democrats voted to advance a slate of GOP bills in a procedural vote that was otherwise on track to fail — the second time they have crossed party lines to help out House GOP leaders in recent weeks.

Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine previously aided Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this month when they voted to advance a “rule” resolution that teed up a Golden-authored measure aiding lobstermen. The move sparked outrage among many of their Democratic colleagues and created a touchy situation for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

But the dustup does not appear to have fazed Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez, who again joined with Republicans Tuesday to set up votes on bills that would hand President Donald Trump new authorities to sanction Russia’s trading partners as well as measures rolling back some EPA regulations.

The vote was 214-211, with two Republicans voting “no” — Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Several other Republicans, including Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania voted “yes” only after extended talks with House GOP leaders.

The last time House Republicans adopted a rule without help from Democrats was in July.

Speaker Mike Johnson, when asked about Democrats helping him adopt a rule twice this month, said he “would have gotten the votes.”

“You saw me work it there at the end,” Johnson said. “We would have had the votes necessary, but we had some discussion about other measures that people want to consider, so just worked through the process.”

After Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden voted with the GOP earlier this month, Jeffries promised a “serious response,” but he later indicted that there would be no public consequences following private conversations with the lawmakers. Golden is retiring after his term ends, and Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking reelection in a district won by Trump in 2024.

Harris announced before the vote that he was introducing a bill to tackle affordability by suspending the federal gas tax, suggesting he may have withheld his vote in a bid to secure floor consideration.

“Let’s put my bill on the floor and PASS IT,” Harris said in a post on X.

Congress

House panel recommends Leon Black be held in contempt for stonewalling Epstein investigation

Published

10 hours ago

September 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Oversight Committee voted unanimously 41-0 Tuesday to recommend billionaire investor Leon Black be held in contempt of Congress for not fully cooperating with the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

It marks an escalation in an already contentious standoff, where Black defied two congressional subpoenas, refused to appear for a transcribed interview and then sued the committee for allegedly “overstep[ing] its authority.”

“Subpoenas are not suggestions. They carry the force of law and require full compliance,” said Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), later noting that Black gave the committee “no choice but to hold him in contempt” after ignoring the subpoenas.

Black has been a target of the committee’s Epstein probe for the personal and financial relationship he maintained with the late convicted sex trafficker, which included a $158 million payment not long after Epstein first became a registered sex offender.

He met with the committee in May for a transcribed interview but declined to speak at length about non-disclosure agreements he entered into with women tied to Epstein. As a result, the panel subpoenaed him to turn over those documents, to which Black responded by refusing to submit all those in his possession and then skipping a scheduled appearance before the panel slated for Sept. 3 — suing the committee instead.

Black’s lawyers, Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler, in a statement before the votecalled for the House Oversight contempt vote to be postponed.

“This entire charade is about politics and ambition. Given our litigation against Chairman Comer and the Committee, the possible ethics violations by Chairman Comer, the false and potentially libelous and defamatory statements by Ranking Member Garcia, there are more than enough reasons to postpone this mark-up and contempt resolution,” the attorneys said.

The contempt resolution now heads to the full House, which also must vote on whether to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia for possible indictment.

Comer said it was now up to GOP leadership whether it would schedule the resolution for consideration before the House leaves at the end of the week for recess until after the midterms. A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately return a request for comment.