Overview
- The partial shutdown has stretched to 39 days, disrupting federal pay, air travel delays and food assistance as the Senate holds a rare weekend session.
- Senate Democrats publicly proposed reopening the government with a clean stopgap paired with a one-year extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits and a bipartisan committee on longer-term reforms.
- Republican leaders dismissed the offer as a nonstarter and insisted health policy be negotiated after reopening, while offering only a later Senate vote on subsidies that Democrats say provides no outcome guarantee.
- A procedural vote on Sen. Ron Johnson’s bill to pay essential federal workers during the shutdown failed 53-43, short of the 60 votes needed to advance.
- Moderate senators are negotiating a fallback package that could reopen parts of government in exchange for only a promise of a future vote on subsidies, as President Trump urges Republicans to stay in Washington and has suggested ending the filibuster.