Congress

Shutdown set to break record as Senate Democrats agonize over endgame

Published

8 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

Capitol agenda: SAVE America swallows Washington

Published

1 hour ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson’s day will be consumed by the SAVE America Act — again.

President Donald Trump’s signature election security bill is on track to derail his chamber’s agenda for the rest of the week as a small group of hard-liners demand House GOP leaders somehow find a way to force the Senate to pass the measure.

Johnson Monday night tried to appease the group by leveraging an unusual procedural maneuver that would send the elections measure and the annual Pentagon policy bill to the Senate in a single package.

But Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who has led the bloc halting House business, dismissed Johnson’s move, arguing it’d allow the Senate to easily strip out the SAVE America Act.

It “will not work,” Luna said Monday night after demanding “a full bakeage” into the must-pass defense bill earlier in the day.

To be clear: Her own proposal to simply add SAVE America as an amendment could be removed just as easily in the Senate as with Johnson’s plan.

But with the speaker needing a unified conference to unlock floor business for the rest of the week — he may be forced to deal with Luna and allied hard-liners regardless of legislative logic.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court decision Monday only sharpened Trump and his allies’ fixation on the legislation, as the court ruled states may accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by that day.

“In light of the tremendous loss in the Supreme Court today concerning Voter’s Rights, and the fact that ‘people’s’ votes are allowed to be counted LONG AFTER an Election is over, it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said on Truth Social, reinvigorating hard-liners’ crusade despite his calls last week for them to stop threatening “No’s” on rule votes.

The court’s ruling spotlights another complication for Johnson: The version of the elections bill he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon legislation doesn’t include the latest demands from Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, for example, was noncommittal Monday when asked about supporting Trump’s full demands for the bill.

“The voter ID part I’m fine with,” he said in an interview. “I’ve already voted for that.”

Even if the House somehow overcomes a tight rule vote and subsequently passes the merged bills, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said the combo could not pass his chamber.

Senators are set to debate their own version of the defense bill next month, and it is all but certain the election overhaul would be removed in negotiations between the two chambers.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON HUDDLES WITH TRUMP ON HOUSING BILL: Johnson said a landmark housing affordability package Congress cleared last week will become law, and that Republicans won’t have to take an uncomfortable vote to override a presidential veto to make that happen. Johnson in an interview Monday said he’d speak again with Trump Tuesday about signing the bipartisan housing bill. The president tanked plans last week to swiftly sign into law one of Republican lawmakers’ top priorities before the midterms, saying he’d hold the measure hostage until Congress passed his election security bill.

— RELATIONSHIP FRAYS BETWEEN SENATE’S TOP APPROPRIATORS: It’s getting harder and harder for the top Republican and Democrat overseeing government funding in the Senate to keep up the collegial working relationship they’ve long prided themselves on. Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have been increasingly at odds as the midterms approach and spending priorities diverge. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of Senate Appropriations, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Meredith Lee Hill, Kelsey Brugger, Jennifer Scholtes and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

The messy standoff driving a wedge between a bipartisan Senate duo

Published

5 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have long prided themselves on working together to advance government funding bills. That collegiality is now showing signs of decay.

The Maine Republican and Washington Democrat have been openly feuding about the path forward on spending measures this summer. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Democrats attribute the clash to Collins’ pursuit of President Donald Trump’s demands for a record military budget that eclipses domestic spending, as she fights to retain her Senate seat in November. Republicans say Murray is playing midterm politics by trying to prevent Collins from landing a deal before Election Day, when Democrats hope to regain House and Senate majorities — and the upper hand in year-end funding talks.

“It’s not personal, but it is very frustrating,” Collins said last week, while insisting she and Murray are still on good terms.

All Murray would say about the state of their relationship was, “We’re talking.”

While that impasse doesn’t necessarily heighten the odds of a government shutdown this fall, it could delay any meaningful Senate appropriations action until after the elections. The outcome of congressional races — including Collins’ toss-up contest against Democrat Graham Platner — could change the power balance in government funding negotiations.

“It certainly looks to me like the Democrats don’t want to give Susan Collins a victory,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “I really think it’s intensely political. She is a very reasonable legislator. If you can’t make a deal with Susan Collins, you don’t want to make a deal.”

Part of Collins’ campaign-trail pitch to Mainers is that she gets results in Washington, and her inability to advance the dozen annual appropriations bills through her committee undercuts that narrative.

Collins isn’t refuting the idea that Democrats might want to deprive her of legislative success as she competes against Platner in one of the closest and most-watched races in the country.

“That’s certainly a viable theory, which is pretty pathetic,” she said in an interview.

This month Collins publicly accused Murray of sending government funding offers that have “made it clear that Democrats are abandoning the appropriations process.” Murray, meanwhile, suggested Collins was at fault for the stalemate by divulging she hadn’t responded to Murray’s latest offer in more than two weeks.

It’s a major tone shift for the two lawmakers, who have earned a reputation for trying to stay out of the partisan fray since they became their party’s top leaders on the Appropriations Committee in 2023. They’ve consistently resisted broadcasting behind-the-scenes friction during tough negotiations and succeeded in reaching cross-party compromises to advance funding bills each year — even after the record government shutdown last fall.

But they’re now at loggerheads over funding totals for the military and domestic programs, along with votes on hot-button Trump policies. Senate Republicans are seeking a military funding boost more than four times larger than any increase in domestic spending, as Trump calls for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget.

“We do not have an agreement,” Murray said, because Republicans “are set on increasing defense in an increasingly huge way that we’ve never had to deal with before.”

GOP senators also want to avoid any amendment votes that could sink approval of appropriations bills, including some related to the Justice Department’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” administration officials have promised not to pursue.

The result is that Collins has yet to hold a committee markup on a single government funding bill with just three months left before federal dollars expire. And some Republican appropriators acknowledge it’s possible the panel won’t vote on any of the spending measures this year given the deadlock.

“Obviously Susan is up this year. And Democrats, at every level and every opportunity, are playing politics with it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “The appropriations process used to be fairly bipartisan. … Murray and the Democrats have turned it into a partisan game.”

Some Democrats openly sympathize with Collins’ predicament in trying to represent politically moderate Maine while holding one of the most influential positions on Capitol Hill during Trump’s second term and unified Republican control of Congress.

“The chair of the committee is being squeezed in every direction,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview.

Many Senate Republicans don’t “give a damn” about funding domestic efforts like public education and biomedical research, Baldwin continued. “I believe that the chairwoman does care about those issues. But you know, she’s in an unenviable position.”

Since Trump was reelected, Collins has worked to negotiate funding bills that spend far more on domestic programs than the president sought. The result has been essentially flat funding for nondefense programs and a 17 percent increase in military spending, which includes the billions of dollars Republicans enacted along party lines last year.

“Chair Collins is very devoted to, or interested in, following through to help the president get more money for the Department of War and munitions, et cetera,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top Republican appropriator. “And I think Senator Murray is on the opposite page.”

“Rather than legislate and work these things out,” Capito added, “I think it’s been decided on the other side to just be obstinate and not participate and not negotiate.”

Trump is calling this year for boosting Pentagon spending by more than 40 percent while slashing domestic programs by 10 percent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic appropriator who has served in Congress for more than 40 years, calls it “a massive change” in the way government funding has been divvied up for decades — by negotiating matching dollar-for-dollar increases in both military and nondefense funding.

“We’re so far apart. We haven’t faced anything like that in recent memory,” Durbin said in an interview. “And to accept the premise of it — what’s left for nondefense is terrible.”

Collins could proceed with markups this summer without an agreement with Democrats, as the House Republican majority has done for years. But Republican senators would need to be willing to vote on controversial amendments Democrats might offer — including proposals that defy Trump.

Senate Republican appropriators faced that issue last summer, when the panel unexpectedly adopted an amendment barring the Trump administration from repurposing cash intended for relocating the FBI headquarters. That outcome prompted several GOP senators to withdraw support for the funding bill.

“The challenge is that, if you have every Democrat voting against reporting the bill out — and then they also are offering poison pills — it’s hard to move those bills,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said in an interview.

During the two years Murray chaired the full committee, Moran recalled, “We had members who wanted to offer what would probably be considered poison pills by Democrats. And Senator Collins talked Republicans out of doing so, to move the process.”

The two sides could easily reach an agreement on amendments and policy stipulations, some Democrats contend, if only Collins and Murray could bridge the divide between the president’s military funding demands and their own domestic priorities.

“Senator Collins is carrying out the administration’s wishes,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, another senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview. “And Senator Murray is noting that a reckless increase in defense spending is not in the best interest of Americans.”

“So they’re both advocating for their viewpoint,” Merkley added. “That’s what we do in a democracy.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

11 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.