{"id":14938,"date":"2025-10-28T16:31:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-still-not-supporting-gop-bill-to-end-the-shutdown\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:31:47","slug":"democrats-still-not-supporting-gop-bill-to-end-the-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-still-not-supporting-gop-bill-to-end-the-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats still not supporting GOP bill to end the shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Democrats rejected the House-passed, GOP-led stopgap for the 13th time Tuesday, as the pain from the government shutdown is poised to escalate by week\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers voted 54-45 on the funding patch, which would float federal operations through Nov. 21. Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto<\/a> of Nevada and John Fetterman<\/a> of Pennsylvania \u2014 as well as Independent Sen. Angus King<\/a>, who caucuses with Democrats \u2014 continued to break ranks to vote in favor of advancing the bill.<\/p>\n

It comes as Democrats are under increasing external pressure to vote to reopen the government following a statement Monday from the powerful American Federation of Government Employees that called on Congress to immediately pass a clean stopgap bill and end the shutdown.<\/p>\n

Democrats have largely signaled they have no immediate plans to change their position: that they would not vote to resume federal funding until Republicans come to the table to negotiate on a bipartisan compromise on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act tax credits. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a health care crisis and Republicans don\u2019t even want to talk about how to fix it,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> said Tuesday. \u201cThe president isn\u2019t even in town as Americans are about to be devastated by the bills they\u2019ll receive on health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was referring to the Nov. 1 date when open enrollment begins for Obamacare health plans, with people are expected to be slapped with high premiums absent a deal to extend the insurance subsidies.<\/p>\n

But Sen. Dick Durbin<\/a> (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, acknowledged Monday evening that AFGE\u2019s statement could have an impact, even if he wasn’t changing his own stance at this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in my mind,\u201d said Durbin. \u201cThe SNAP program feeds one out of eight Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are staring down a grim reality that fallout from the shutdown is about to get worse, and there\u2019s no offramp in sight. On Friday, members of the military will miss a paycheck; on Saturday, the government will stop distributing key food aid benefits relied upon by millions of low-income Americans.<\/p>\n

And then there are worries that key personnel at airports will stop showing up for work, which could lead to major air travel disruptions as well as potential safety issues.<\/p>\n

Republicans will discuss holding votes on stand-alone bills to lessen certain elements of shutdown pain, such as paying the troops and federal employees, during a closed-door lunch Tuesday with Vice President JD Vance.<\/p>\n

A growing number of Democrats have signaled they would be willing to support legislation from Sen. Josh Hawley<\/a> (R-Mo.) that would fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for the duration of the shutdown.<\/p>\n

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> told reporters Tuesday, \u201cthere\u2019s not a high level of interest in doing carve outs, or so-called \u2018rifle shots.\u2019 I think most people realize the way to get out of this mess is to vote to open up the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are not expected to give Hawley\u2019s proposal a vote this week, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal scheduling. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, with the shutdown all-but-guaranteed to cross the one-month mark, Republicans want to keep maximum pressure on Democrats to reopen the government by making conditions on the ground as unpleasant as possible. <\/p>\n

At the same time, some GOP senators are pushing for the chamber to remain in session beyond its normal Thursday afternoon exit time to make progress on reaching an agreement to end the impasse. Sen. Lisa Murkowski<\/a> (R-Alaska) urged her colleagues to stop treating the shutdown as business-as-usual during a floor speech Monday.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso<\/a> (R-Wyo.), asked Tuesday about Murkowski\u2019s remarks, said he was willing to stay in session through the weekend if it would result in Democrats supporting the GOP stopgap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been here on weekends and it doesn’t seem to have made a difference,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Democrats rejected the House-passed, GOP-led stopgap for the 13th time Tuesday, as the pain from the government shutdown is poised to escalate by week\u2019s end. Lawmakers voted 54-45 on the funding patch, which would float federal operations through Nov. 21. Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania \u2014 as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}