{"id":15356,"date":"2025-11-07T01:46:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-ready-to-reject-latest-gop-shutdown-offer\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T01:46:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:46:40","slug":"democrats-ready-to-reject-latest-gop-shutdown-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-ready-to-reject-latest-gop-shutdown-offer\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats ready to reject latest GOP shutdown offer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> is dangling another carrot for Democrats. They still aren\u2019t ready to bite.<\/p>\n

In his latest pressure tactic, the South Dakota Republican is teeing up yet another vote to reopen the government Friday, the 38th day of the record-setting shutdown. But this time, he is pledging to swap out the House-passed stopgap bill<\/a> for a new funding patch, likely into January, along with full-year funding for veterans programs, food aid and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what they asked for,\u201d Thune said Thursday night.<\/p>\n

But Democrats, stiffened by their party\u2019s big election wins Tuesday that have papered over rising internal divisions, are expected to block a procedural vote yet again, according to two people granted anonymity to describe caucus dynamics, as well as interviews with several potential Democratic swing votes.<\/p>\n

They are intent on forcing President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans to cough up a better deal and finally engage on their central demand \u2014 an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies that aren\u2019t definitively addressed in the latest GOP offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeader Thune isn\u2019t doing himself any favors by not coming to the table,\u201d said Sen. Jacky Rosen<\/a> (D-Nev.), who has been viewed as a possible swing vote but said she would vote no Friday.<\/p>\n

Several other Democrats professed unity coming out of a long lunch meeting Thursday \u2014 one of several they\u2019ve held this week as they\u2019ve wrangled over an endgame to the long shutdown.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dick Durbin<\/a> (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader, said Thursday that Democrats \u201care as unified as we have ever been,\u201d while adding that \u201cpeople understand the gravity of the shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

But those proclamations belied the behind-the-scenes tensions between a group of Democratic senators who believe the time has come to reopen the government and the caucus\u2019 progressive bloc, which is aghast at the idea of surrendering without a health care deal, especially after Tuesday\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’ve got to stand up, and they’ve got to fight,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a> (I-Vt.) said of his fellow caucus members in a brief interview Thursday night. \u201cThey have the American people at their back. And Republicans are going to have to come to the table and recognize they just cannot double premiums for millions of Americans in this country.\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Other corners of the caucus, however, believe Sanders and his allies \u2014 who have not participated in the bipartisan talks \u2014 are simply wanting to brawl with Republicans without having a realistic plan to bring the longest shutdown on record to an end.<\/p>\n

The progressives \u201chave yet to articulate any sense whatsoever of how they think this ends or any proposal to get Republicans to the table other than waiting longer and longer,\u201d said a Senate Democratic aide who was granted anonymity to comment candidly about caucus dynamics. \u201cAnd in the meantime it\u2019s the families who can afford it the least that are increasingly getting walloped by the shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to get a better offer,\u201d another Democratic aide involved in the bipartisan talks added.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the case the Senate Democrats who have been negotiating have been trying to make privately to their colleagues, and they believed they were gaining traction earlier this week. But the sweeping election gains Tuesday fired up other Democrats and left many wondering if Republicans would offer new concessions.<\/p>\n

Progress has been made in recent days toward finalizing a three-bill package that would fund some federal agencies through September, one that would be attached to a stopgap bill to reopen the rest of the government for just a few months. Republicans are also discussing whether a final deal can involve rehiring thousands of federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown \u2014 a new element first reported by POLITICO Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But according to a person granted anonymity to describe the sensitive talks, there has been no new GOP offer on health care. Republicans are willing to commit to a future vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies by an agreed-upon date but they have not moved off their position that the government must reopen first. Nor has there been any progress in getting Trump or Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> to guarantee a path forward for any Senate-forged compromise.<\/p>\n

“I’ve made this very clear to them that I can’t guarantee them an outcome \u2014 I can guarantee them a process,\u201d Thune said Thursday. \u201cWe’ve had that conversation multiple times already.\u201d<\/p>\n

As senators left the Capitol around dinnertime Thursday, they still didn\u2019t know what exactly Thune would be asking them to vote on Friday. To allow more time for talks to progress, the Senate won\u2019t come into session until noon Friday, and a time hasn\u2019t yet been scheduled for the promised vote.<\/p>\n

If it fails as currently expected, it\u2019s unclear what Thune might do next. Sen. John Barrasso<\/a> of Wyoming, the No. 2 GOP leader, said Thursday the Senate would stay in session over the weekend, but senators could head home \u2014 potentially for a scheduled weeklong Veterans Day recess \u2014 if there\u2019s no hope of a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty had weary senators questioning whether the end is truly in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been talking for days, but there’s no product,\u201d said Delaware Sen. Chris Coons<\/a>, who is among the Democrats considered most likely to support a bipartisan compromise. \u201cI’m hopeful we can find a way through this over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Rounds<\/a> (R-S.D.), who has been closely engaged in the bipartisan talks, said Thursday night there is \u201cno organized effort at this point that is bearing fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are attempts to find a way to bring people forward, but I’m discouraged,\u201d he added. \u201cI’m hoping that overnight things might change a little bit, but I\u2019m not optimistic.”<\/p>\n

Jennifer Scholtes, Mia McCarthy, Katherine Tully-McManus, Meredith Lee Hill and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is dangling another carrot for Democrats. They still aren\u2019t ready to bite. In his latest pressure tactic, the South Dakota Republican is teeing up yet another vote to reopen the government Friday, the 38th day of the record-setting shutdown. But this time, he is pledging to swap out the House-passed […]<\/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-15356","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\/15356","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=15356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}