Furloughed federal workers stand in line for hours ahead of a special food distribution by the Capital Area Food Bank and No Limits Outreach Ministries on Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Senators on Friday said they plan to remain in town for the weekend, a sign negotiations may be picking up to approve a stopgap spending measure and end the government shutdown, now at day 38.

A vote on a package of spending bills could come either Saturday or Sunday that would partially fund the government, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters.

“Our members are going to be advised to be available if there’s a need to vote,” Thune said. “We will see what happens and whether or not, over the course of the next couple of days, the Democrats can find a way to reengage again.”

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a proposal from Democrats to agree to reopen the government if health care tax subsidies are continued for a year. 

As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic increase in premium costs.

“We’d like to offer a simple proposal,” the New York Democrat said. “To reopen the government and extend the (Affordable Care Act) tax credits simultaneously.” 

Republicans have maintained that any discussion on extending the health care tax credits set to expire at the end of the year will only happen after government funding resumes. House Speaker Mike Johnson this week said he would not promise a vote on the GOP-controlled House floor regarding the issue. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in September found that if lawmakers permanently extend the enhanced tax credits for certain people who buy their health insurance through the ACA Marketplace, it would cost the government $350 billion over 10 years and increase the number of those with health insurance by 3.8 million.

But it was unclear how much traction Schumer would get. Several Republicans called the proposal a “non-starter,” such as Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. 

Rounds also questioned if the stopgap spending bill that Democrats agreed to support is the House-passed version that would extend government funding only to Nov. 21 or another that would run longer. 

“It’s good that they’re recognizing that we have to open up the government,” Rounds said of Democrats. 

Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin called the proposal from Democrats “absurd,” and said there was no way senators could negotiate a deal on health care quickly.

He added that Trump also wants to be part of the negotiations on health care.

“Whatever we do as Republicans, we’ve got to really work close with the president,” Mullin said. “The President wants to be involved in this negotiation.”

Separately, senators failed Friday in a 53-43 vote to move forward on a bill from Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson to pay federal workers who Friday missed their second paycheck. Georgia’s Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock voted with Republicans. Sixty votes were needed.

President Donald Trump on social media said, “The United States Senate should not leave town until they have a Deal to end the Democrat Shutdown. If they can’t reach a Deal, the Republicans should terminate the Filibuster, IMMEDIATELY, and take care of our Great American Workers!”

Flight cutbacks, food aid disruption

The Senate has failed 14 times to move forward on approving a stopgap spending measure to fund the government until Nov. 21. 

As the government shutdown has dragged on for nearly seven weeks, major airports have been hit as they struggle to maintain flight schedules, with air traffic controllers now more than a month without pay.

Meanwhile, federal courts have forced the Trump administration to release billions in emergency funds to provide critical food assistance to 42 million people. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would issue full November benefits for food assistance in compliance with a court order.

As the debate in Congress goes on, Democrats have refused to back the House-passed version of the GOP stopgap measure over their concerns about the expiration of health care subsidies.

Democrats also want to see federal workers laid off by the Trump administration amid the shutdown rehired. Major wins across the country for Democrats in Tuesday elections in the states bolstered their resolve to reject efforts to end the government shutdown that do not include certain policy wins.  

Historically, lawmakers who have forced shutdowns over policy preferences have not been successful. 

In 2013, the GOP tried to repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act, which did not happen, and in the 2018-2019 shutdown, Trump, in his first term, insisted on additional funding for a border wall. But that shutdown — which set a record exceeded only by the ongoing shutdown — concluded 35 days later with the same amount of money included in the original appropriations bill. 

Thune lament

Thune told reporters Friday that he thought progress was being made on striking a deal to resume government funding, but he said after Democrats’ Thursday caucus meeting, their tune changed. 

“Right now, we’ve got to get the Democrats kind of back engaged,” Thune said.

Following Thursday’s meeting, Democrats remained tight-lipped and did not seem any closer to an internal agreement on how to move forward with resolving the government shutdown.

“I thought we were on a track,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican said. “We’d give them everything they wanted or had asked for.”

Senate Republicans have agreed to allow a floor vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies and have opened the door to rehiring federal workers, but have not gone further.

“At some point … they have to take yes for an answer, and they were trending in that direction,” Thune said. “And then yesterday, everything kind of, the wheels came off, so to speak, but it’s up to them.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told reporters Thursday that voters this week made a strong showing in rebuking the Trump administration and that Democrats need to continue their fight amid the government shutdown.

“On Tuesday, all of us in the caucus heard that loud and clear,” Murphy said. “We want to stay together and unified. I think everybody understands the importance of what happened on Tuesday, and wants us to move forward in a way that honors that.”

Bill to pay federal workers

Federal workers going without salaries for more than a month now remains a concern, and Johnson tried to pass his bill through unanimous consent that would send them paychecks. Employees are paid after the end of a shutdown, under the law.

Michigan’s Gary Peters objected to Johnson’s bill over concerns that the Trump administration would not use the funds to pay federal workers, and the measure would not prevent the firing of federal workers. 

Peters pointed to how the Trump administration initially appealed a federal court order that compelled the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay $9 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. 

Peters offered his own bill to set “guardrails” on the president’s authority to ensure that the funds are used to pay federal workers and not moved around. The Trump administration has moved around billions in multi-year research funds within the Defense Department to ensure that troops are paid. 

“He walks over Congress all the time,” Peters said of the president while on the Senate floor. 

Johnson objected to Peters’ bill. He argued that his bill does not expand presidential powers.

“We were very careful that it wouldn’t do that,” Johnson told reporters of his bill.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents 800,000 federal workers, urged Democrats Friday to support Johnson’s bill.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a letter to senators Friday that with Thanksgiving in less than three weeks, Congress needs to come to an agreement on funding the government. 

“Every missed paycheck deepens the financial hole in which federal workers and their families find themselves,” Kelley said. “By the time Congress reaches a compromise, the damage will have been done to their bank accounts, their credit ratings, their health, and their dignity.”

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington. D.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON —  On day 21 of the federal government shutdown, the political tensions and policy differences that contributed to it appeared likely to destroy any chance for the GOP-controlled Congress to find the bipartisanship needed to pass the dozen bills needed to fund the government. 

While that is very inside baseball, failing to approve the 12 appropriations bills will block lawmakers’ funding requests for high-profile projects in their home states, known as earmarks, from becoming law—like highway construction, water systems, education projects, research facilities and more. 

A full-year stopgap spending bill would also cause significant headaches for departments throughout the government that have faced challenges adjusting to the series of stopgaps that funded the government for the last year, even without the turmoil of the layoffs and funding cancellations enacted by the Donald Trump administration.

The full-year spending bills are also the best chance Congress has to exercise its constitutional authority over government spending and are supposed to spur debate about where taxes paid by Americans can most help the country. 

Skipping that process and avoiding tough conversations about where funding is most needed, and where it is not, absolves lawmakers of a core job responsibility — securing money to help their constituents have better lives. 

As of Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans appeared nowhere near any kind of deal to reopen the government, which has been shuttered since Oct. 1. Members of the House are not in session and last voted on Sept. 19. The Senate has voted unsuccessfully 11 times on the same House-passed stopgap spending bill, failing to gain the 60 votes needed for it to advance. 

‘Extremely harmful’ effect of another stopgap 

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she’s opposed to using what’s called a continuing resolution for the rest of the fiscal year instead of working out an agreement on the full-year government funding bills. 

“The impacts of another year-long CR would be extremely harmful to federal programs, particularly the Department of Defense, and should be avoided at all costs,” Collins said. 

Congress used three continuing resolutions to keep government funded during the last fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30. 

Lawmakers have relied on stopgap spending bills to fund the government for the entire fiscal year a handful of times during the past several decades. 

But Congress has not used stopgap spending bills for two consecutive years since the late 1970s, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. 

Senate Republicans lunch with Trump

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said after a lunch at the White House with President Donald Trump and other GOP senators that talks about the full-year government funding bills can only begin after the shutdown ends. 

“We want a normal appropriations process. We want to give them an opportunity to sit down and litigate some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune said. “But that can’t happen until the government gets opened up again.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, said a full-year continuing resolution is “absolutely” possible if the process doesn’t start moving forward soon. 

But Hoeven declined to say if he’d vote for a stopgap spending bill that voids the appropriations process for the second year in a row. And said he’s “of course” concerned about the negative impacts of a full-year continuing resolution. 

“I don’t want to get ahead of the process. What I want to do is get government open and get back to regular order,” Hoeven said. 

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and a senior appropriator, said it will take real leadership in both chambers to get any movement on the full-year bills. He also said he’s vehemently opposed to a stopgap spending bill for the entire year. 

“I think if we vote for a full-year CR, we’ve fully abdicated our responsibility, constitutionally, to be the power of the purse,” Reed said. 

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said he “could not support a full-year CR.”

“We’ve gotten so much of the work done, and now it’s just a matter of whether or not Democrats allow us to bring them to the floor,” Rounds said, referring to the full-year Defense spending bill that failed to advance last week. 

Rounds said he thinks Democrats are struggling to figure out a way to end the government shutdown, which would potentially allow work on the full-year bills to get going again. 

“I think they made a very serious strategic error when they decided to jump on and to shut down government in the first place,” Rounds said. “And now they don’t have a graceful way out, and that’s a problem.”

Process, interrupted

Normally, by now, Republicans and Democrats would have agreed how much to spend on defense and domestic programs and divvied up that roughly $1.8 trillion to the dozen full-year government spending bills. 

The lawmakers tasked with writing those appropriations bills would have started meeting to work out spending levels and policy differences between the original House bills and the original Senate bills. 

That is all on hold because of the shutdown and may never even happen, potentially leading Republicans to write a stopgap spending bill for the rest of the year. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, said she wants Democrats to vote to reopen the government, so she can get back to working on her full-year appropriations bill. 

“I want to do my job, which is why I am so frustrated that we didn’t get to move forward with appropriations bills on Thursday,” Britt said, also referring to the Defense bill. “I think it was incredibly short-sighted of my Democratic colleagues to vote that down, because this is our opportunity to actually do work for the American people. And I think we should get our job done, not pass the buck.” 

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, the top Democrat on the State-Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittee, said he still has “hope for the appropriations process.”

“Obviously, we have to get through the shutdown, but there’s bipartisan desire to get something done and to avoid a full-year CR,” Schatz said, adding that it’s hard to do anything with the House out of session. 

New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, opposes using a full-year continuing resolution over negotiating bipartisan versions of the full-year government funding bills. 

“I am concerned about a full-year CR, and I do think that we should get back to the appropriations process and get those bills done,” Shaheen said. “I think there’s interest on both sides of the aisle to do that.”

Uncharted waters

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the top Democrat on the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations subcommittee, said that GOP leaders will have to accept the regular give-and-take of bipartisan negotiations if they want to get anything through the upper chamber. 

“I think first and foremost, we have to really make sure that Speaker (Mike) Johnson recognizes that the only way forward with appropriations and other matters is a bipartisan way forward,” Baldwin said. “That’s the only way you pass things that require 60 votes in the Senate.”

Baldwin said that means both chambers should use the total spending level that received bipartisan backing in the Senate Appropriations Committee, not the lower spending level used by the House panel. 

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, was far more pessimistic than many of his colleagues.

“I think you’re living in a world that does not exist,” Murphy told States Newsroom. “I think 2025 is totally unlike every other year that has existed before. Our democracy is literally dying under our feet. The president is engaged in mass scale illegality and corruption, and nothing that we have done here in the past will be precedent for what will happen in the future. The House of Representatives has never boycotted Washington for a month-and-a-half. The majority party has never refused to negotiate with the minority party. So I think we’re in really uncharted waters, and nothing can happen until the House Republicans return and Senate Republicans decide to negotiate.”