The United States Senate has taken its first step towards ending the longest government shutdown in the country’s history as lawmakers agreed to move forward with a stopgap funding package.
The Republican-led proposal, which would keep the government running until January 30, comes after weekend negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats to end the shutdown, which on Monday entered its 41st day.
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The shutdown, which has surpassed the 35-day record in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term, has disrupted flights across the country, deprived millions of Americans of food aid and left more than 1.3 million federal government employees furloughed or working without pay.
What exactly did the Senate vote on?
The Senate passed a procedural vote on Sunday, which means the vote was not over the bill, but it will allow the bill to move forward so senators can debate and eventually vote on it. This 60-40 test vote marks the first step in a series of procedural manoeuvres.
“Now, this is what is called a cloture vote, a procedure by which the Senate agrees to continue the debate about the legislation and begins introducing and passing the bills aimed at ending the shutdown,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said, reporting from Washington, DC.
If the Senate eventually passes the bill, the package still must be approved by the House of Representatives before being sent to Trump for his signature to become law.
In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats and Democrats have 47, but Republicans do not have the 60 votes needed to advance bills. Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted to move the Republican measure forward.
In the House, Republicans hold 220 seats while Democrats have 212.
What is included in the funding package, what isn’t and why that matters
The measure would provide yearlong funding for certain parts of the government, including for food assistance programmes and the legislative branch.
It does not extend health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which Democrats have been demanding to pass any funding measure. The ACA was passed in 2010 under President Barack Obama and expanded health insurance coverage.
However, centrist Democrats and Republicans reached a deal to vote in December on extending the healthcare tax credits, which are due to expire this year. The subsidies under the ACA help low-income Americans pay for private insurance.
Democrats have been promised that the Trump administration will continue to employ government employees furloughed due to the shutdown and extend the expiring healthcare tax credits, according to the US-based news site Politico.
But no official information about the bill has been available so far.
In a statement before the vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the Republican leader of the chamber, lauded the “bipartisan way” to address the crisis.
But Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, expressed concerns. “For months and months, Democrats have been fighting to get the Senate to address the healthcare crisis. This bill does nothing to ensure that that crisis is addressed,” he said.
On Saturday, Trump proposed to send ACA subsidies directly into people’s bank accounts, building pressure on the Democrats.
“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
In July, Trump and Congress cut Medicaid funding by $930bn over the next decade as part of his “Big Beautiful Bill”. Medicaid is the biggest government-run health programme and provides care to low-income people.
Which Democrats voted for the bill?
The measure passed in a 60-40 vote. Eight members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted for the bill. All Republicans voted for the measure except Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky.
Democratic senators who voted for the motion to advance the bill included Dick Durbin of Illinois; Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire; John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada; and Tim Kaine of Virginia.
Independent Senator Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, also voted in favour of the measure.
Did the bill receive pushback from other Democrats?
Yes.
Schumer said before the vote that he could not support the measure “in good faith”. The Senate minority leader, who faced criticism from fellow Democrats in March for voting with Republicans to keep the government open, said the party has now “sounded the alarm” on healthcare.
“We will not give up the fight,” Schumer said.
Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, said that giving up the fight would be a “horrific mistake”.
Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said local and state elections last week saw support for Democratic candidates because voters were expecting Democrats to hold firm in the negotiations.
On Tuesday, Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral election. Democrats also won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia on the same day.
Since the beginning of the shutdown, Democratic senators voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demanded the extension of the ACA tax credits.
How much money has been lost during the shutdown and how has it impacted people?
The shutdown has resulted in about 750,000 federal employees being furloughed, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). A furloughed employee is suspended or discharged for a period of time without pay.
This would result in a daily loss of about $400m in wages, the CBO said. Based on this number, the shutdown has resulted in an estimated loss of $16bn in pay over 40 days.
Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at the Ireland-based University College Dublin’s Clinton Institute, put the loss to the US economy at $7bn to $14bn. “That loss in gross domestic product, GDP, is estimated to be around 1.5 percent this quarter,” he told Al Jazeera.
If the bill advanced on Sunday would eventually pass and become law, it would bring back furloughed federal workers, repay states that funded federal programmes during the shutdown, prevent further layoffs until January and ensure workers are paid once the shutdown ends.
Lucas added that millions of Americans are now paying more than double in premiums for their health insurance as the tax credits are slated to lapse. And there is no surety that the December vote would extend those credits, he said.
He also pointed out that nearly 42 million Americans have lost their food assistance provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “No government support for those payments, and the Trump administration has ordered states, which offered food assistance payments, to return that money,” he told Al Jazeera.
What’s next?
Al Jazeera’s Hanna explained that once a cloture vote passes, all later votes on a bill need only a simple majority in the Senate.
“The important thing about the cloture vote is that once it is passed at that 60 percent majority, every subsequent vote is by a simple majority. So it would appear to be plain sailing in the Senate for the Republicans to pass this bill and end this closure,” Hanna said.
If the Senate eventually passes the bill, the same version of it would have to pass the House and be signed by Trump. This process could take a few days.
