{"id":15170,"date":"2025-11-03T09:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T09:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/utterly-shameful-congress-to-crush-us-record-this-week-for-longest-shutdown\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T09:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T09:46:57","slug":"utterly-shameful-congress-to-crush-us-record-this-week-for-longest-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/utterly-shameful-congress-to-crush-us-record-this-week-for-longest-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Utterly shameful’: Congress to crush US record this week for longest shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Congress is on track this week to break an unflattering record: presiding over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

The ongoing funding lapse will hit the 35-day mark Tuesday night, eclipsing the partial shutdown that ended in early 2019 and also occurred under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Bipartisan talks among rank-and-file senators are underway, which could thaw the weekslong freeze between the two parties. Lawmakers over the weekend were confronted with the grim reality that millions of Americans could lose SNAP food aid \u2014 as well as more closures of early education centers, shortages of air traffic controllers and first glimpses of higher health care premiums as Obamacare subsidies are set to expire.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s little chance members of Congress will be able to cobble together a deal to reopen the government before their partisan stalemate clears a new milestone. Even if an agreement quickly materializes in the Senate, lawmakers aren\u2019t scheduled to return to the Capitol until Monday night, and Speaker Mike Johnson has told House members they will get 48 hours notice before they need to be back in Washington to vote on any bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cShameful, utterly shameful, that the Democrats are making history in this way,\u201d Johnson said in an interview Friday. \u201cI honestly did not believe they would have the audacity to inflict this much pain on the people and show no regard for it whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday is also Election Day in several states, with both parties closely watching the outcomes in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the mayoral contest in New York City and a congressional redistricting referendum in California. Some Republicans are betting their Democratic colleagues will be more willing to vote for a funding patch once those major political events are behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re going to wait till after the election on Tuesday and get their guy in New York elected \u2014 they’re going to get New Jersey. And then they’re looking for an exit ramp,\u201d Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told reporters last week. He was referring to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist vying to run New York City, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), on the ballot to be New Jersey\u2019s governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re going to show they put up a good fight. They don’t want to do it before Tuesday. Because if they do it before Tuesday, then their base may not show up because it looks like they caved,\u201d Mullin added.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune agreed: \u201cTuesday, that seems to be another inflection point and hopefully that frees some people up to be able to vote \u2018yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats reject the premise that they are holding out on a deal based on a political calculation.<\/p>\n

“Over the last 30 days, we’ve said the same thing over and over and over again: We’ll sit down with Republicans anytime, anyplace, anywhere in order to reopen the government and act on a spending agreement that actually meets the needs of the American people,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference last week.<\/p>\n

But Democrats have been increasingly in the hot seat during this standoff, forced to reckon with the blowback they got from their base back in March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer led a handful of his members in advancing GOP-backed legislation to avoid a shutdown. Schumer and others are now seeking a deal on health care and a path to a bipartisan funding framework before lending their votes to reopen the government.<\/p>\n

Many Republican lawmakers are not convinced the shutdown will end so quickly.<\/p>\n

“What I see is no off-ramp,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said late last week. \u201cAnd I’ve heard all the rhetoric and the Democrats are getting restless and they’re going to crack any minute. … Chuck’s not going to let them agree on jack shit.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said in an interview that Trump will play a pivotal role in what comes next in shutdown talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republicans all take their cue from [Trump]. And ultimately, he’s got to say, \u2018I want a deal.\u2019 So a lot’s on him to bring people together,\u201d Takano said. \u201cHe\u2019s got to be part of the off-ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump was overseas last week, only to return to the U.S. and immediately throw a wrench into fragile member-level discussions by posting a message on Truth Social demanding Senate Republicans eliminate the legislative filibuster to bypass Democratic opposition to the House-passed funding patch.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s recommendation for ending the shutdown wasn\u2019t the type of involvement lawmakers of either party had in mind for the president. The Senate GOP likely doesn\u2019t currently have the votes<\/u><\/a> to change the chamber\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n

Setting the shutdown record is likely to become another talking point for each party to scorn the other with, but it\u2019s a superlative that neither party wants to own, which could motivate lawmakers to hasten their pursuit of a deal.<\/p>\n

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) raised some eyebrows in his caucus last week by suggesting in a television interview<\/u><\/a> that Thune offered Democrats a \u201cfair deal\u201d in saying he would allow a vote to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies if the minority party voted to end the shutdown. And Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Friday his party might need to \u201crecalibrate\u201d its position if Republicans remained unmoved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point of this was not to blackmail the Republicans or to score political points on one issue or another. The point of this was to get to better policy. And if what we are doing with the shutdown isn’t getting us to better policy, then yeah, we recalibrate and we have a conversation,\u201d Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said at a Council on Foreign Relations event.<\/p>\n

This shutdown is also proving to be more painful than past ones \u2014 not only because of its length but because Congress didn\u2019t get any full-year spending bills signed into law before thrusting the federal government into crisis.<\/p>\n

In late 2018, when the last record-breaking shutdown began over whether to fund Trump\u2019s border wall, lawmakers had already locked in funding for a number of agencies, including the Pentagon. That allowed some parts of the government to operate normally and limited the full impact of a lapse in appropriations.<\/p>\n

In the coming days, lawmakers will have to weigh the full implications of allowing the shutdown to continue. While last week was filled with warnings of pain points ahead, some members of Congress believe this is the week where reality could set in.<\/p>\n

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) predicted a potential lapse in SNAP benefits could be a turning point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our expectation is that things are going to blow up one way or the other,\u201d Ivey said. \u201cWhen people get up and check their EBT card, it’s got zeros on it. I don’t know, it’s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill, Jennifer Scholtes, Jordain Carney and Connor O\u2019Brien contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress is on track this week to break an unflattering record: presiding over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The ongoing funding lapse will hit the 35-day mark Tuesday night, eclipsing the partial shutdown that ended in early 2019 and also occurred under President Donald Trump. Bipartisan talks among rank-and-file senators are underway, which […]<\/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-15170","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\/15170","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=15170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}