#continuing resolutions

Chris Stein at The Guardian:

The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators. The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare health plans, which most Democrats demanded be extended in any deal to reopen the government.

After it was unveiled over the weekend, the Senate approved the compromise on Monday, and the House followed suit two days later by a margin of 222 in favor and 209 against, with two not voting. Donald Trump signed the bill on Wednesday night, saying “we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was … the Democrats tried to extort our country”.

Six Democrats broke with their party to vote for the bill: Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against it. “The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans,” House Republican leadership said in a statement.

“There is absolutely no question now that Democrats are responsible for millions of American families going hungry, millions of travelers left stranded in airports, and our troops left wondering if they would receive their next paycheck.” In remarks on the House floor shortly before the vote, the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, had pledged to continue to press for the subsidies’ extensions.

“This fight is not over. We’re just getting started,” he said. “Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J Trump once and for all. That’s how this fight ends.” The spending standoff was the biggest battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It resulted in unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering cuts to commercial air travel across the country, and the first-ever halt to the largest federal food aid program.

[...] Meanwhile, a small group of moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus had been negotiating a compromise to end the shutdown. It ended up funding the government through January and undoing the layoffs the Trump administration had ordered after the shutdown began. But it included no additional funding for the Affordable Care Act tax credits – instead, Thune agreed to allow a vote on the issue by mid-December. There’s no telling if it will win the GOP support needed to pass, and Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has not said he will put any legislation up for a vote.

Last night, Donald Trump signs the continuing resolution bill that was passed by the House 222-209 that had 6 Dems cross over to vote yes (Cuellar, Davis, Gluesenkamp Perez, Golden, Gray, Suozzi) and 2 Repubs to vote no (Massie, Steube) to end the longest government shutdown in American history that was caused by the GOP and Trump.

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Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Senate Republicans quietly added a provision to legislation passed to reopen the federal government that could lead to large payouts for several party members. If the legislation becomes law, the language would allow Republican senators to sue the federal government for purportedly getting ahold of their private data without proper notification. The legislation provides for compensation of up to $500,000 in each case. The unusual provision seeks to compensate the eight Republican senators who had their information accessed during former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump. During that investigation, phone records for the eight senators were obtained by the FBI as Smith’s office looked into attempts by Trump to illegally overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden. Senate Majority Leader John Thune inserted the language, according to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who claims to have been targeted in the records probe.

This is corrupt. Several Senate Republicans hid kickbacks inside the CR to reopen government.

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Igor Bobic at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Senate on Monday passed legislation to fund the government after a 41-day standoff over health care, sending the bill to the Republican-controlled House, which is expected to quickly approve it and end the government shutdown later this week. The vote was 60-40, with 7 Democrats and one independent senator joining Republicans in support of the measure.

The impasse ended after a group of moderate Senate Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to fund the government without key demands of their party, including an extension of enhanced subsidies for people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act that are due to expire next year. Republicans agreed only to hold a vote on extending the tax credits next month, but that’s expected to fail due to widespread GOP opposition to the program. Proponents of the deal argued it’s still a win for Democrats since Republicans previously weren’t willing to hold any votes on restoring ACA subsidies. Critics slammed it as a meaningless gesture that’s doomed to fail. Monday’s vote on the deal to reopen the government was briefly stalled by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposed a measure in the bill that would outlaw certain synthetic cannabinoid products derived from hemp. Paul said the provision will destroy the hemp industry, which is active in his state of Kentucky, and demanded a vote to strip it out of the bill. But the Senate rejected it by a wide bipartisan margin.

Republicans also blocked, via a straight party-line vote, a last-ditch effort by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) to include in the bill a one-year extension of enhanced ACA subsidies.

The US Senate approved 60-40 to reopen the government without Obamacare subsidies included, and the House will vote on it next.

The same 8 capitulating Democrats/Dem-caucusing Independents voted YES, and Rand Paul (R-KY) was the lone NO for the GOP.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)’s amendment to include a one-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies failed 47-53 on party lines.

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Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Sunday night, news broke that a group of Democratic senators had reached a compromise with Republicans to reopen the government. Shortly afterward, the Senate voted, with seven Democrats and independent Senator Angus King supporting a package that would fund the government through January 30 and fully fund some agencies for the entire 2026 fiscal year through a series of “minibus” bills. The deal drew swift criticism: Democrats secured no guarantee of extending Obamacare premium subsidies, and wins for core Democratic priorities were nonexistent. One community watching especially closely was transgender Americans, who have been directly targeted by multiple FY26 appropriations bills on the House side. EITM can confirm that the compromise continuing resolution and the accompanying minibus packages contain no anti-transgender provisions.

[...]

Notably, the House versions of the VA/MilCon, Legislative Branch, and Agriculture funding bills did contain anti-LGBTQ+ riders before the shutdown. If the House accepts the Senate’s compromise, it would mark some of the first major defeats for those provisions in the FY26 budget fight. The House bills included measures allowing discrimination against LGBTQ+ people under the guise of religious liberty as well as a prohibition on Pride flags from being flown at many federal buildings, and earlier versions of the VA/MilCon bill had a prohibition on funds going to gender affirming care. If the House ultimately adopts the Senate’s compromise versions for the full fiscal year, these riders would be dead—at least for these portions of the federal budget—until late next year.

However, the deal does not touch the most consequential appropriations bill on the House side—the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education package, which remains loaded with sweeping anti-transgender riders but has not been negotiated yet. The most alarming provision would ban “any federal funds” from supporting gender-affirming care at any age. If passed and interpreted broadly—and consistent with how Trump has already wielded his power against youth care—it could strip federal funding from hospitals that treat transgender people, a threat that has already pushed 21 hospitals to end care for trans youth, even in blue states. At minimum, the measure would end Medicaid and Medicare coverage for transgender healthcare nationwide. The House Labor/HHS/Ed bill for FY26 also carries other provisions: gutting protections for queer foster children, imposing a nationwide sports ban, and prohibiting Pride flags in public buildings. This bill was not part of the minibus package, which means that it may come up for a fight on January 30th when the short term continuing resolution ends.

Why the fuck are we still passing Continuing Resolutions? Seriously. This shutdown should be the breaking point. The government needs to buckle the fuck down and actually get these appropriation bills done — now. No more CRs. Fuck that. Continuing Resolutions are nothing more than political duct tape slapped over a gaping hole that keeps getting bigger every year. They aren’t solutions. They’re…

Brian Bengs:

Our country is once again barreling toward another government shutdown in a routine so familiar it’s almost comical. In just the last fifteen years, we have had three full shutdowns (2013, 2018, and 2018/19) and five near misses (2018, 2020, 2020 again, and 2024), with the 2018/19 shutdown alone costing taxpayers $11 billion. Here we are again, mere days before the shutdown, while congressional leaders Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, John Thune, and Mike Johnson plan to meet tomorrow (September 29). The President is threatening mass firings of federal workers, and the House is scheduled to meet at noon on the 30th, leaving less than 12 hours for Congress to avoid a shutdown. With Republicans seemingly attempting to force a shutdown by rejecting Democrats’ healthcare funding concerns (which, to be fair, are well-founded), the legislative branch has been debased to a game of chicken. Despite it all, the truth is that if Washington can always find a way to hand out tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, then they can certainly come together to keep the government running while protecting people’s healthcare. It doesn’t have to be this dysfunctional. I believe that two major changes can ensure the government remains funded and functional without approaching shutdown every year: procedural changes in the budget-making process and Independent federal representatives, thereby depriving either party of a majority. Independents can pressure both parties to do better because the American people deserve solutions, not manufactured crises.

How’d We Get Here?

The Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA), initially adopted in 1884, prohibits federal government agencies from spending funds that Congress has not appropriated. Before 1980, government agencies were allowed to operate between appropriations bills under the assumption that funding would come later. However, in 1980/81, the Attorney General issued stricter legal opinions that interpreted the ADA as requiring agencies to cease “non-essential” operations until Congress passed the next fiscal year’s appropriations bills. Congress is supposed to pass 12 annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on October 1. This rarely happens. Instead, Congress often relies on temporary funding bills called continuing resolutions (CRs), which maintain current spending levels while extending the deadline. When these CRs expire without a new budget in place, the government shuts down. In good faith, this process allows for compromise and negotiation, but our dysfunctional political system has enabled the budget process to be hijacked.

[...]

Why Do Shutdowns Keep Happening?

The primary driver behind the ever-increasing frequency of government shutdowns in the past decade is the deepening political divide between the two major parties. With majorities being razor-thin and neither side willing to compromise (which, given what’s at stake, is understandably difficult), it is a better strategy for parties to hold their ground rather than come to the table. The problem of this political divide is exacerbated by reactionary culture war issues dominating political discussions in Congress. Budget bills may be the battlefield, but the actual ideological battle is somewhere else. For the 2018/19 shutdown, it was border security, and this year it’s healthcare. Once the shutdown becomes tied to something other than funding and budgetary matters, it becomes a tool in a dysfunctional political toolbox. Similarly, non-fiscal issues have become the focal point of shutdown discussions, while the modern 24-hour news cycle heightens the drama of political disputes. This especially emboldens politicians who thrive on public attention, but it negatively impacts all federal representatives. The optics of appearing unyielding can vastly outweigh the consequences of a shutdown, making shutdowns more of a theatrical performance than a good-faith negotiation. [...]

How Do We Stop Future Shutdowns?

Removing shutdowns from the strategic toolbox of American politics requires significant changes in both the structural and personal aspects of the budget-making process. As an Independent Senator from South Dakota, I would push for these reforms to build better incentives that would prevent government shutdowns from being manipulated and misused. The yearly and non-negotiable nature of appropriations bills creates a predictable time bomb that Congress can exploit. To fix this, I support the implementation of an “automatic continuing resolution” (ACR). This would maintain the government’s current funding levels if Congress fails to pass new appropriations bills by the deadline. ACRs would prevent shutdowns from being used in political negotiations and ensure that government services and agencies can continue to operate. Currently, there are no consequences for lawmakers themselves when they allow shutdowns to occur. A policy that imposes immediate personal consequences on lawmakers, such as withholding their salaries and barring political fundraising, would incentivize them to take action to pass appropriations bills. Combined with ACRs that would keep individual government employees paid, only Congress would be negatively affected by this policy if it fails to do its job.

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning (03.14.2025):

Ten Senate Democrats handed Republicans a critical victory yesterday, voting in favor of cloture on a budget that will allow the Trump Administration to continue wielding budget cuts as a political weapon—targeting the administration’s opponents, including trans and queer people. The budget slashes Medicaid, dealing a direct blow to vulnerable constituents, while further entrenching the administration’s consolidation of power. The backlash from within the party was swift, with figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Nancy Pelosi condemning those who crossed the aisle. Yet some have rushed to defend the vote, insisting that Democrats had no real choice—that avoiding a government shutdown was the priority, and that Republicans are the true villains here. But this defense falls apart under scrutiny. Would these same voices excuse a vote that greenlit anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans amendments, restrictions on mifepristone, or even a total abortion ban? Where, exactly, is the line? In recent months, fear of Republican hostage-taking has driven a wave of capitulation, with institutions and individuals alike complying with administration policies—even when those policies are blocked in court. Nowhere is this more evident than in what the transgender community has endured. Hospital systems have abandoned gender-affirming care, citing the risk to their government grants, their fear of Trump’s administration outweighing their willingness to fight. Even LGBTQ+ health centers have erased gender-affirming care resources, afraid that merely acknowledging such care could jeopardize their federally qualified health center status. Again and again, we see the same pattern: compliance disguised as pragmatism, retreat framed as strategy. And to those who justify it, the question remains—where is your line? When a handful of Democrats voted to advance the Republican budget, they justified it by claiming the alternative—a government shutdown—was too steep a price to pay. But in the chaos of the Trump administration, that claim doesn’t hold up. Markets are already crumbling, Elon Musk is slashing essential programs with no oversight, and dysfunction defines the federal government. Even if Republicans tried to pin the shutdown on Democrats, the messaging writes itself: We will not vote for a budget that gives Elon Musk the power to act as an unelected king, nor will we allow Medicaid to be gutted. But they didn’t even try. Instead, they retreated—the one time they had real power, real leverage, and a chance to push back. Apparently, Medicaid and Musk were not their line. As expected, a small but influential chorus of pundits is rushing to excuse the Democrats who voted to advance the Republican budget, arguing that criticism should be directed solely at the GOP. On the surface, the logic seems sound—after all, far more Republicans than Democrats supported the bill. But this framing ignores a critical fact: had Democrats held the line as a unified caucus, the bill would not have passed. Had leadership actually whipped the votes, the bill would not have passed. Republicans absolutely deserve blame, and readers of my newsletter know I don’t hesitate to call them out. But the getaway driver is just as culpable. We expect Democrats to champion those in need, to fight against Musk and Trump’s creeping despotism, and—at the bare minimum—to have a line they will not cross. [...] For those defending the actions of the ten overtly complicit Democrats today, where is your line? Would you offer the same justifications if ten Democrats voted for a total abortion ban, insisting well, we had to keep the government open? What about a bill defunding public schools? A ban on clean energy? Take the issue you care about most, push it to its furthest extreme—because everyone has a line. Or maybe not. Maybe the real fear among those making excuses isn’t about Republican atrocities at all. Maybe it’s the uncomfortable truth that we have work to do in our own party.

Erin Reed’s analysis on the Capitulating 10 Senate Democrats is spot-on.

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Sarah Jones and Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA:

Before the Senate voted, House Democratic Leadership held a press conference where Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries explained why House Democrats almost unanimously opposed the CR. Jeffries said, “The House Democratic position is very clear. We strongly oppose any efforts to cut the health care of the American people, veterans benefits, and nutritional assistance, all of which are in the partisan Republican bill. We're going to continue to support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, and public schools. At the same time, Donald Trump and House Republicans try to take a chainsaw to these important priorities of the American people.” The final vote was 62-38 to break the filibuster. Here is a list of the Senate Democrats who betrayed their party and country: 1) Durbin 2) King 3) Schatz 4) Schumer 5) Cortez Masto 6) Fetterman 7) Peters 8) Hassan 9) Gillibrand 10) Shaheen. These are the Democrats who voted to allow the passage of a bill in the Senate that cuts healthcare, veterans benefits, and nutritional assistance to hungry Americans. Two of the senators who voted to break the filibuster are retiring. Both Shaheen and Peters will not be running for reelection. Cortez Mastro and Fetterman are trying to fend off tough reelection fights in swing states in the next few years. Durbin, Schumer, Gillibrand, King, Hassan, and Schatz all come from safe blue states. Those Democrats in safe blue state seats are the ones who betrayed their country and constituents the most. [...] Ten Senate Democrats sold out their House colleagues, their party, and their country by giving a president who clearly wants to be an authoritarian even more power.

10 Senate Democrats betrayed the country and the party by caving into the Trump/Musk agenda by voting YES on cloture to the CR that broke cloture 62-38 (Rand Paul was the lone GOP no). The final vote still needs to occur.

The shameful 10 who should be primaried and/or retired:

Cortez Masto (NV) [2028]

Durbin (IL) [2026]

Fetterman (PA) [2028]

Gillibrand (NY) [2030]

King (I, ME) [2030]

Hassan (NE) [2028]

Peters (MI) [2026]

Schatz (HI) [2028]

Schumer (NY) [2028]

Shaheen (NH) [2026]