The unlocking of the lock in the Senate came after 40 days and about 21 hours. It was a Monday after 9:30 p.m. (Washington time), thanks to the 15th vote, which this time led by 60 votes to 40. However, the end of the longest government shutdown in US history is getting a little closer.
This achievement was made possible by the defection of seven Democratic senators and one independent, which opened the door on Sunday around midnight to end the partial shutdown of the administration, which on Monday, entering its seventh week, celebrated its 41st day. It also returned the Democratic Party to familiar territory: the existential crisis from which they seemed to have emerged after a long year immersed in it, after their resounding victories on November 4 in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
Voters’ support appears to be equivalent in opinion polls to their opposition to US President Donald Trump, especially the refusal to agree with rivals to reopen the public money tap until they obtain a Republican commitment that part of the health coverage included in the Obamacare program will not disappear at the end of the year, as planned. They are subsidies approved during the pandemic, and their expected end will lead to higher health insurance prices for millions of Americans.
So why do we surrender now specifically to a covenant that does not include that conquest? That same question was asked by 39 of his Senate colleagues, who voted Sunday against the new Republican funding proposal, and did so again Monday, along with maverick Republican Rand Paul. After receiving final approval in the Senate, it still must be approved in the House of Representatives and obtain the president’s signature. Thus the conservatives score victory, after achieving the qualified majority of 60 votes required by the filibuster rules in the Senate (where they have 53 seats and the rebel Rand Paul).
The leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, spoke to the press on Monday afternoon in the Capitol building to say what he had previously said on social media: his people will not vote for the new proposal either, because it contributes, he added, to “exacerbating the health crisis” that the country is going through. It doesn’t matter much: their competitors have the majority and it’s enough for them to keep it simple.
Democratic dissenters, three of whom — John Fetterman (Pa.), Katherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), and Angus King (Maine) — have voted with Republicans from the beginning, held a news conference Sunday night to try to justify themselves, saying the deal they support is “the only deal possible” and highlighting what… Yes That includes: reopening the federal administration’s tap until the end of January, when there may be a new crisis, funding the food stamps that 42 million people are relying on through fiscal year 2026 and committing that the Trump administration will reinstate officials fired during those 41 days, that it will retroactively pay lost wages to those who kept their jobs, and that it will not lay off any more federal employees over the next two and a half months.
Schumer’s criticism
Members of the group, which includes New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine (Virginia), Dick Durbin (Illinois) and Jacky Rosen (Nevada), voted for a variety of reasons — from concern for Kaine’s group of officials in his state to pressure from Nevada’s tourism industry. Whatever their reasons, they all faced similar criticism from their own people on Monday. In Shaheen’s case, blame for the surrender came even from her daughter, fellow Democratic politician Stephanie Shaheen, who expressed her displeasure on her social media networks.
The shock wave is also affecting the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, whom his co-religionists blame for his inability to maintain cohesion among his ranks. He added, “He is no longer fit and must be replaced. If he cannot lead the fight to stop the skyrocketing health insurance premiums for Americans, why is he fighting?” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said in a social media post Sunday. For his part, Ezra Klein, the party’s most influential columnist, wrote an article in… New York Times Titled: “What Are the Democrats Thinking?”
The agreement — reached, according to Klein, “for very little” — also includes a commitment to hold a Senate vote on extending Obamacare subsidies (the name the president who promoted the Affordable Care Act has given to the Affordable Care Act), though it seems clear that it will do little good. Neither Republicans nor Trump, who has been attacking this rule for days, appear fully prepared to convince their rivals on this point. Dissidents say that this vote will at least give their rivals a chance to think about this issue, which greatly worries Americans.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s agreement in the Senate is just the beginning of the process that will lead to the government opening, hopefully before the end of the week, which, to make matters more complicated, includes Tuesday’s holiday, Veterans Day. Republican Majority Leader Mike Johnson appeared Monday morning to warn members of Congress of the need to return to Washington as soon as possible to vote. He gave them 36 hours to return to Washington.
The House of Representatives has been in recess since before the start of the government shutdown ordered by Johnson. Once work resumes, Democrats will force a vote, with the help of a handful of Republicans, to force the Justice Department to announce the decision. epstein papers, Corresponding to the trials against the millionaire pedophile. He died in 2019 before facing justice, while awaiting his fate in a New York cell. Epstein was a friend of Trump, and the name of the president, who was not linked to any of the financier’s crimes, appears repeatedly in those papers.
On Monday, Trump intervened in the Capitol battle through his social network, “Truth,” with a message in which he promised to reward “10,000 dollars” to the “patriotic” air traffic controllers who continued their work these weeks, despite not receiving their salaries. As for the rest, he issued a threat that it is not clear what it will translate into: “For those who have done nothing but complain and take days off (…) I am not happy with you. (…) You will have a negative point, at least for me, in your file.”
These federal employees, such as those responsible for security at airports, are considered essential workers. The remaining civil servants, about 750,000, will be suspended from pay, but also from work, during any administration shutdown. They all feared Trump would carry out another threat: not to pay them retroactively. This fear dissipated after learning the details of the Senate agreement.
Among the consequences of the government shutdown – which has paralyzed dozens of federal agencies and closed or neglected museums, monuments and nature parks – It has prompted thousands of staff to turn to food banks and temporarily halted the distribution of vouchers on which millions of disadvantaged people depend – with perhaps the most serious impacts on air traffic. And also those who exerted the most pressure on legislators.
Last Friday, the US Aviation Authority (FAA) decided to cancel hundreds of flights at the 40 major airports in the United States to address air saturation due to the resignation or resignation of controllers. After a chaotic weekend, Monday dawned with expectations of 1,485 flight cancellations and 825 flight delays, according to the FlightAware website. The situation worsened as the hours passed.
It is not known when US airports will return to normal. While the government’s reopening process continued slowly at the Capitol, no one was in a position Monday to be sure when the longest shutdown in U.S. history would end. Nor is there any use for so much suffering. In Washington, the most frequently asked question the day after eight senators surrendered was whether the boxers could have reached the agreement reached Sunday in the Senate even before they put on the gloves on October 1.
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