Mike Johnson says House lawmakers should start returning to DC “right now” after a small group of Senate Democrats broke a 40 day stalemate late Sunday evening and voted with Republicans to move forward with legislation that would end the government shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that House lawmakers should start returning to Washington “right now” after a small group of Senate Democrats broke a 40-day stalemate late Sunday evening and voted with Republicans to move forward with legislation that would end the government shutdown.
It is unclear when the Senate will hold final votes on the legislation. But Johnson said the “nightmare is finally coming to an end” after the Senate voted 60-40 to consider a compromise bill to fund the government.
“We have to do this as quickly as possible,” Johnson said at a news conference Monday morning. He has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a bill to continue government funding.
After weeks of negotiations, the moderate Senate Democrats agreed to reopen the government without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who have demanded for more than six weeks that Republicans negotiate with them on the Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire Jan. 1. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised a mid-December vote on the subsidies, but there was no guarantee of success.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York voted against moving ahead with the package, along with all but eight of his Democratic colleagues.
“We will not give up the fight,” Schumer said, adding that Democrats have now “sounded the alarm” on health care.
An end to the shutdown could still be days away if any senators object and drag out the process. Thune said Sunday evening that he was still working out concerns within his Republican conference about individual provisions in the underlying spending bills.
One of those Republicans, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, had threatened to object to a provision championed by his home state colleague, Sen. Mitch McConnell, to prevent the sale of some hemp-based products.
“We’ll revisit that tomorrow after we have more clarity on where things stand,” Thune told reporters after the vote on Sunday night.
President Donald Trump has not said whether he will sign it, but told reporters at the White House Sunday evening that it “looks like we’re getting close to the shutdown ending.”Five Democrats switch votes
A group of three former governors — New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine — broke the six-week stalemate on Sunday when they agreed to vote to advance three bipartisan annual spending bills and extend the rest of government funding until late January in exchange for the mid-December vote on extending the health care tax credits.
