On Sunday night, the Senate successfully passed a test vote 60-40, clearing the way for a vote to pass a compromise bill which would fund the government at its current levels through January 1. Eight members of the Senate’s Democratic caucus voted with Republicans, including the three senators who negotiated the compromise: New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen and Maine’s Angus King. Senators Tim Kaine, John Fetterman, Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Jacky Rosen were the other Democrats who voted with the GOP. Here’s what Democrats did and didn’t get as part of the compromise, per NBC News:
The agreement contains a “minibus” — three full-year appropriations bills that will fund certain departments like the Agriculture Department through the end of the fiscal year next fall — and a continuing resolution to fund the rest of the government at existing spending levels through Jan. 30. It would also fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as food stamps, through next September, a major flashpoint in the shutdown. The sources said the deal also reverses Trump’s attempted layoffs of federal workers during the shutdown through RIFs, or “reduction in force” notifications.
But in a major concession from Democrats, it does not include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Allowing the funds to lapse would raise insurance premiums for millions of Americans unless they are extended. Instead, the Democrats settled for a promise that the Senate will vote on a bill to extend the subsidies by the end of the second week of December, with the outcome uncertain, two of the sources said. Even then, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he won’t promise that the House will vote on extending the subsidies.
It might take several days for Congress to reopen the government, but the end appears to be in sight.
