The Senate on Tuesday shot down a bill to reopen the federal government for the 14th time, even as the chamber shows signs of movement toward a possible deal to end the shutdown.
Senators voted 54-44 on the House-passed “clean” continuing resolution, which would have funded the government through Nov. 21. It needed 60 votes to advance.
Despite the tentative moves toward a deal, the tally remained largely the same. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Angus King (I-Maine) all continued to vote with Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) once again broke with the GOP on the spending measure.
The vote came as the impasse hit day 35 — tying it for the longest shutdown in U.S. history with the 2018-19 version.
“Democrats are recalcitrant,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in floor remarks Tuesday. “For a party that claims to represent working people, it is striking to me how little Democrats seem to care about working people during this shutdown.”
Thune also used the opportunity to highlight a recent op-ed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who urged Democrats not to cave to Republicans without a deal to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that have been at the center of the shutdown fight. He said Sanders wants the shutdown to “keep going forever, as far as I can tell.”
Those calls for an extension of the subsidies continued after open enrollment kicked off over the weekend.
“Twenty-four million Americans are now making agonizing decisions … about what health care plans they choose — if they even choose one or are able to afford one — about how much they’ll be able to pay and if they can afford health care at all,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor.
“This open enrollment is not like open enrollment in previous years,” he added.
However, the chamber is more upbeat that a deal could be coming down the rails sooner rather than later. Thune told reporters on Monday that he was “optimistic” one could come together around a commitment to the appropriations process, passing a minibus and a vote on health care subsidies by a date certain.
Bipartisan talks over the weekend have continued into this week, mostly among appropriators, toward a possible resolution.
“I think we’re getting close to an off-ramp,” Thune said. “The objective here is to try and get something that we could send back to the House that would open up the government.”
