(The Hill) – Senators say they expect the government shutdown to drag out until at least the middle of next week, with some fearing it could go even longer.
The Senate rejected votes to reopen the government on Wednesday, and the chamber will be out of session on Thursday in observance of Yom Kippur.
The Senate will return Friday, but few expect the vote that day on the House GOP measure to fund the government to have a different result.
Two Democratic senators and Independent Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) voted for the measure for a second time on Wednesday, but Republicans would need another five Democrats to reach 60 votes — the threshold needed to send the measure to President Trump.
Democrats say the votes won’t be there because Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) has made it clear he won’t support it, and he would face a huge political backlash if he flip-flopped.
“We just voted that down twice. Plainly that’s not going to reopen the government,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who predicted the House GOP will need to craft a different measure to get the government open.
The White House and Republicans, however, have been equally firm that they will not do so.
They argue that the “clean” bill passed by the House, which would continue existing funding through Nov. 21, should be accepted by Democrats. They also argue that in past funding fights, it has been Democrats backing clean measures.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans on Wednesday seemed to be feeling any worry about the shutdown.
Some Republicans, noting the defections of two Democrats and King, who caucuses with Democrats, might have hoped to see more Democrats jumping ship. Instead, the votes were identical, suggesting Democrats are digging in for a longer fight.
If things are going to change next week, it could depend on whether Trump and Republicans or Democrats are feeling the most political pain.
A senior Senate Democratic aide said a shutdown could last “very long” depending on Trump’s “pain threshold” and predicted that Trump may be willing to leave the government shuttered for weeks.
Trump presided over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history in 2018 and 2019, when much of the federal government was shuttered for 35 days.
At the same time, the aide argued that Democrats will not weaken.
“They aren’t going to pick us off,” the source said.
The Trump administration signaled before the shutdown began that it intended to make the stoppage as painful as possible for Democrats.
On Wednesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told House Republicans on a conference call that layoffs of federal workers will be coming in a day or two, according to sources on the call.
Vought also told the members that funding for the Women, Infants and Children food assistance program would run out in the next week or two, sources on the call said.
Vice President Vance kept up the pressure campaign during an appearance at the White House.
“We are going to have to lay some people off if the government shutdown continues,” Vance said. “We don’t like that, we don’t necessarily want to do it, but we’re going to do what we have to do to keep the American peoples’ essential services continue to run.”
Those threats are intended to pick off centrist Democrats who feel uncomfortable over the shutdown, yet those lawmakers so far are not bending.
One Democratic lawmaker who spoke to The Hill said centrists, including lawmakers who represent tens of thousands of federal workers, are ready to wait out a long shutdown because even their constituents who work for the government are “fed up” with Trump.
Democrats also have the luxury of knowing that federal workers who may be furloughed for weeks are required by law to be paid back for their time once the government reopens.
It’s a different atmosphere from that seen in March, when 10 Democrats, including Schumer, voted for a partisan six-month, House-passed continuing resolution. At the time, Schumer feared a shutdown would give too much power to Trump to fire federal workers and slash Democratic priorities.
Schumer helped bring along three other Democrats: his whip, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.); the chief deputy whip, Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii); and his home-state colleague, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).
All of those lawmakers took heat from the left for their votes, and Schatz has already made it clear he will not vote for the pending House-passed funding measure. Durbin and Gillibrand are seen as highly unlikely to change their minds and now vote for the House bill.
A second Democratic senator warned that voting for the House funding bill after defeating it multiple times would look like too much of a “cave.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Wednesday knocked the idea of passing a different piece of compromise legislation and sending it to the House to approve.
Instead, he indicated that he planned to keep the Senate in session to vote again — and perhaps again and again — on the House bill.
“I think we’re going to wait until these guys decide to vote, ‘Yes,’” Thune said.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) at a joint press conference with Thune ruled out adding language to the House bill demanded by the Democrats — specifically provisions to extend the enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are due to expire, and to prevent the White House from clawing back spending with pocket rescissions.
“Here’s the simple fact: There isn’t anything we can do to make this bill any better for them. We literally did not put one single partisan provision in the bill. There are no policy riders, there are no gimmicks and no tricks,” Johnson told reporters.
A group of centrist Democrats and Republicans held impromptu meetings on the Senate floor Wednesday in hopes of finding some kind of compromise.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has been in discussions with GOP colleagues about finding a way to reopen the government, signaled she could support a short-term funding measure if Republican leaders promise to address rising health care premiums.
“I trust that if the Republican leadership commits to do something and lets everybody know that, that they will do that,” she said.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) has floated to Democratic colleagues a proposal to extend the expiring premium subsidies for one year — an idea that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) included in her framework to keep the government open, which she unveiled on Sept. 20.
Schumer on Wednesday hailed those negotiations as a “good thing.”
Senators are also discussing a short-term continuing resolution, something spanning a week or 10 days, to reopen the government while the negotiations on health care provisions continue.
But such a proposal is still a few days away from coming together in any serious way.
Thune told reporters Wednesday that he’s being kept apprised of conversations among colleagues to reopen the government, but he indicated that he’s unlikely to make legislative changes to the House-passed bill.
“I get readouts from all those huddles and I have had personal conversations with members, members on both sides. We’ll see where it goes. I tell people, ‘When you have critical mass, come and talk to me.’ That’s going to be at least eight” Democratic votes to reopen the government, he said.
Sarah Fortinsky contributed.
