Senate leaders in both parties are saying they’re hopeful the month-long government shutdown could end this week.
Monday marked the 34th day of the impasse, and on Tuesday it will tie the 2018-2019 partial government shutdown as the longest in history.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he is optimistic but not confident about the shutdown ending this week.
“Based on, sort of, my gut of how these things operate, I think we’re getting close to an off-ramp here,” he said, while qualifying, “This is unlike any other shutdown in terms of the way Democrats reacted to it.”
Senate Democrats have blocked a House-passed stopgap bill to fund the government at prior fiscal year levels through Nov. 21 a total of 13 times. They are demanding a bipartisan negotiation over health care, in particular an extension of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire this year.
Illinois Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the Democratic whip, said he also senses an off-ramp could be close, based on bipartisan talks taking place among the rank-and-file.
“Maybe I’m reading a lot into it, but I’ve talked to a couple of my colleagues on the Democratic side who are in conversation,” he said. “They tried before and it didn’t work, and now they’re trying again, and they seem more optimistic.”
But Mr. Durbin acknowledged the main obstacle that led to the shutdown still remains.
“We’re still stuck with this premise of what we’re going to do about health care costs,” he said.
Much of the bipartisan Senate conversations have focused on the path forward for enacting full-year appropriations bills once the government is temporarily reopened.
Mr. Thune also reiterated that he is willing to offer Democrats a “date certain” for a vote on a bill of their choosing to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
“They’ve got to be willing to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” he said.
Mr. Durbin said Democrats are looking for a solution, not just a vote.
“It’s got to be more than that,” he said.
Mr. Thune said he was encouraged by bipartisan conversations that continued through the weekend, but signaled there were no major breakthroughs.
“If we don’t start seeing some progress, or some evidence of that by at least the middle of this week, it’s hard to see how we would finish anything by the end of the week,” he said. “And I think that would be the objective here, is to try and get something that we could send back to the House that would open up the government.”
Mr. Thune said the Nov. 21 end date of the House-passed stopgap “is lost” and that the Senate is likely to amend it if they reach a deal to reopen the government.
A new date has not yet been picked, but Mr. Thune said it could be sometime early in 2026 because a lot of time has run out to get the 12 annual spending bills done this year.
“The longer sort of runway there is better,” he said.
