The Senate opened its doors after 40 days and 21 hours. Last month, at 9:30 pm (Washington time), thanks to the fifteenth vote, which came out this time alone with a majority of 60 votes in favor and 40 votes against. And with it, the end of the longest government session in US history is drawing closer.
This success was possible thanks to the defection of seven Democratic and independent senators, who opened the door on Sunday at the end of the partial shutdown of the administration, which completed this month, as it entered its seventh week, its forty-first day. It also brought the Democratic Party back to familiar ground: the existential crisis that seemed to have emerged after a long year immersed in it, after its resounding victories on November 4 in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
Voters’ support appears to be equivalent at the polls to their opposition to US President Donald Trump, especially the refusal to negotiate with rivals to reopen the supply of public money until they commit Republicans that the portion of health coverage included in Obamacare will not disappear at the end of the year, as expected. With the approval of the subsidies during the pandemic, their expected results will lead to higher medical insurance prices for millions of Americans.
So why do we surrender now in particular to a charter that does not include this conquest? This same question begs whether the 39 senators who voted Sunday against the new Republican funding proposal come back in the next few months to do so, along with a maverick Republican, Rand Paul. After you get your final good pass in the Senate, you still have to get the approval of the representatives and get the signature of the president. Conservatives are aiming for victory, with a qualified majority of 60 votes, which is required by Senate filibuster rules (where they have 53 votes and Rand Paul is a rebel).
The leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, went to the press this afternoon in the Capitol to decide what they said on social networks: their followers will also vote in favor of the new proposal, because it has, in the past, contributed to the “exacerbation of the health crisis” through which the country. It doesn’t matter much: your competitors have the majority and this is simple enough.
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 evening to try to justify themselves, saying the deal they support is “the only deal possible” and to prove what happened. Yes It includes: reopening the federal administration’s shutdown until the end of the money, when a new crisis could strike, funding food stamps for those 42 million people dependent on it through fiscal year 2026 and a commitment that the Trump administration will bring back laid-off employees within those 41 days, that it will retroactively pay for losses that those who kept their jobs didn’t realize, and that it won’t reach any more federal employees in the next few months.
Schumer’s criticism
The group’s members, who complement New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine (Virginia), Dick Durbin (Illinois), and Jacky Rosen (Nevada), voted for a variety of reasons — from concern for employees and the crowd in their state, from Kaine, to the prisons of Nevada’s tourism industry —. Shawn, who had his reasons against him, faced similar criticism of his own now. In Shaheen’s case, the censorship of the surrender led to his daughter, also Democratic politician Stephanie Shaheen, expressing her disgust on her social media networks.
The expansionist wave also hits the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who accuses his supporters of being unable to maintain cohesion among their ranks. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop the massive increase in Americans’ medical insurance premiums, why would you fight?” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., says 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: “¿En que los Demócratas think.”
The agreement — reached, according to Klein, “in very short order” — also includes a commitment to hold a Senate vote on extending Obamacare subsidies (the name given to the president’s balanced health law that he pushed), though it seems clear that it would serve little purpose. 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 make their rivals retract their views on this issue, which worries Americans so much.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s proceedings in the Senate are just the beginning of the process that will lead to a government opening, hopefully, before the end of the week, which, by further complicating matters, includes a celebratory event this year, Veterans Day. Republican Mayor Mike Johnson appeared this month this morning to warn members of Congress that they would return to Washington as soon as possible so they could vote. It takes Les 36 hours to return to Washington.
The chamber has been dropped since before the Johnson-ordered holiday government shutdown began. Once they reopen, Democrats will be forced to vote, with the help of a handful of Republicans, to force the Justice Department to make it public. epstein papers, Corresponding to the lawsuits against millionaire Bidrast. He died in 2019 before facing justice, while awaiting his success in a New York cell. Epstein was a friend of Trump, and the name of the president, who has not been linked to anyone for financial crimes, appears repeatedly in these papers.
This month, Trump entered the Capitol battle on his social network, “Truth,” with a message in which he promised a “$10,000” reward to the “patriotic” air traffic controllers who continued their work these weeks, despite not receiving their wages. Moreover, they issued a threat that was unclear as to what it would translate into: “For those who have no more time than they want to have free days (…) I am not satisfied with the others. (…) You have a negative point, even for me, in this working day.”
These federal employees, like those responsible for security at airports, are considered essential workers. As for the remaining employees, about 750,000, they are not working during any administration closure, but also from work. They all feared Trump would comply with another threat: not to pay retroactively. This fear dissipated after learning the details of the Senate agreement.
Among the government’s consequences – decades of state and federal agencies have paralyzed or neglected museums, monuments, and nature parks; It has pushed thousands of staff into food banks and temporarily halted the distribution of vouchers to those relying on millions of disadvantaged people – the effects on air traffic perhaps being most serious. Those with higher authority also put pressure on legislators.
Last month, the US Aviation Authority (FAA, for its acronym in English) took effect to cancel hundreds of flights at the 40 major airports in the United States in the face of low air saturation or the resignation of controllers. After a chaotic weekend, this month came with an expected 1,485 flight cancellations and 825 flight delays, according to the FlightAware website. The situation worsened as the hours passed.
There is no time to restore normalcy at American airports. While the government’s reopening process has continued slowly at the Capitol, this month was not in a position to guarantee an end date for the longest shutdown in US history. Also, which saved a lot of suffering. In Washington, the most frequently asked question a day after two senators surrendered, if this agreement had been reached this Sunday in the Senate, it could have been reached by those who fought before and even those who collapsed before October 1.
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