Senate passes bipartisan funding bill, setting stage for government to reopen this week
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The ongoing shutdown stalemate in the Senate officially ended late Monday night, putting Congress on track to reopen the government later this week.
Senators proposed a bipartisan funding package to end the government shutdown after a group of Senate Democrats broke with their colleagues and joined Republicans in reopening the government.
The same eight Senate Democratic caucus members stayed with Republicans, providing the crucial votes needed to send the package to the House.
MIKE JOHNSON KEEPING HIS VOTE ON WEDNESDAY UNTIL THE END OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
The Senate cleared procedural hurdles and advanced its government reopening package; The responsibility to end the shutdown now falls to Parliament. (Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
Votes continued into the wee hours of Monday night, the 41st day of the shutdown, resulting in an updated continuing resolution (CR) combined with a trio of spending bills in a minibus package now headed to the House.
Whether the Senate would get to this point was on the agenda for much of last week and even earlier in the day. On Monday, lawmakers were buzzing after successfully completing the first procedural test of the package, but concerns about objections and other procedural maneuvers threatened to derail the process.
“I think everyone’s pretty united [behind] “This bill,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. “We want to reopen the government.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DY, and his caucus have demanded throughout the entire shutdown that they will only vote to reopen the government if there is a firm agreement on expiring Obamacare subsidies.
But that deal, or at least the deal Democrats wanted, never materialized. Instead, eight Senate Democrats accepted the offer Senate Majority Leader R.S.D. had been making all along: a guaranteed vote on legislation that would deal with subsidies.
Senate hopes to clear procedural hurdles to reopen government
A group of Senate Democrats crossed the aisle to join Republicans in bidding to reopen the government, providing enough votes to get the wheels turning as the shutdown enters its 41st day. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
Thune reiterated his promise and noted that the vote would be held “no later than the second week of December.” Subsidies are planned to end by the end of the year.
“We have both Democratic and Republican senators who are willing to work to address this crisis in a bipartisan manner,” he said. “These senators are not interested in political games, they are interested in finding real ways to pay for health care for American families. And we have a president who is willing to sit down and work on this issue.”
But Senate Democrats didn’t leave completely empty-handed.
The renewed CR, which would reopen the government by Jan. 30, included reversing the Trump administration’s layoffs of furloughed federal employees; It was an agreement that would ensure furloughed workers would receive back pay and future protections for federal employees during shutdowns.
“It was the only deal on the table,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., one of eight people who crossed the aisle to support the package. “Our best chance was to immediately begin negotiations to reopen the government and extend the deadline.” [Obamacare] Tax credits that tens of millions of Americans rely on to keep costs low.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., another of eight Senate Democrats who broke with Schumer, said it was clear Republicans would not budge on their stance that health care would be addressed once the government reopens.
But it wasn’t the guarantee of a vote on expiring subsidies that drove it to break up; They were promises of protections for federal employees.
Senate DEMOCRATS’ CAVE PAYS TO REOPENING GOVERNMENT
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., briefs the media on the timeline for possibly ending the government shutdown at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington on Nov. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“If you wait another week, they’re going to get injured more, another month or more,” Kaine said. “What pushed me to cross that line was the commitment they could make to federal employees.”
On the House side, GOP leaders appear eager to move quickly to end the long shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Fox News Digital earlier Monday that he would bring the House back into session “immediately” upon passage of the legislation in the Senate.
He later told House Republicans in a call attended by lawmakers only that he expected a vote in their chamber to be held by midweek at the earliest, Fox News Digital has learned.
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“We will plan to be here and vote at least until Wednesday,” Johnson said. “It’s possible things could change a little during the week, but right now we think we’re heading towards a vote on Wednesday. That’s why we need you here.”
Johnson signaled that Parliament would not speed up the legislation by suspending the rules, but would overcome procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the passage threshold to two-thirds of the parliament.
This is not a surprising move, given House Democratic leaders’ opposition to the bill.
But he said the House Rules Committee should be ready to act as early as Tuesday.
