Talks to end the Democrats’ government shutdown have reportedly picked up amid crucial deadlines and mounting outside pressure.
Nearly a month into the stalemate, “the vibes might finally be shifting,” Politico reported Wednesday, as looming food aid cutoffs, travel delays, and calls from the nation’s largest federal workers union to reopen the government push lawmakers toward a deal.
“I think they’ve picked up,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Politico of bipartisan talks. “Deadlines have a way of doing that.”
Republican leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., believe mounting pressure may soon convince enough centrist Democrats to accept a short-term funding measure, potentially by early next week.
Options under discussion include temporary stopgaps that would extend government funding through January or even March.
Democrats, however, are not signaling a public retreat.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that after Nov. 1, “Republicans will face increased pressure to negotiate with us.”
Still, even liberal Democrats such as Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have begun backing stand-alone bills to ease the shutdown’s impact.
Thune also said President Donald Trump is open to meeting with Democrats as soon as next week to discuss expiring Obamacare subsidies, but only once the government reopens.
Privately, Democrats acknowledge growing strain from federal worker unions, food aid advocates, and voters frustrated by the impasse.
“No one wants to be shut down,” one Democrat senator told The Hill, describing “uneasiness” within the caucus.
“We’ve heard from unions and nutrition people worried about running out of assistance. The president doesn’t care about screwing people — he wants to screw us. That’s why this is such a slog.”
Republicans, led by Thune, say Johnson’s proposal to pay all federal workers could reach the floor within days.
Johnson previously told The Hill he believes GOP leadership and the White House support the idea.
“Are they going to take ‘yes’ for an answer?” he said, calling his offer to pay furloughed employees a “big concession.”
Under the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, furloughed employees are guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends, but Johnson argues they should be paid upfront.
Democrat caucus members such as Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said they’re reviewing the bill closely.
Meanwhile, union pressure is intensifying.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, representing 820,000 federal and D.C. workers, has called on Congress to pass a clean stopgap spending measure immediately.
At the same time, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is leading a separate push to prevent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from lapsing.
His Keep “SNAP Funded Act” has 10 GOP co-sponsors and one Democrat, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
In a New York Times opinion column on Tuesday, Hawley warned that 42 million Americans could lose food assistance if Congress fails to act, writing, “No one in this richest of nations should go to bed hungry.”
Hawley said preventing widespread hunger “costs only about a tenth of our annual defense budget,” calling food aid “a vital benefit to Americans that aligns with our tradition of providing for those in need.”
With SNAP funding set to run out in days and federal paychecks halted, Johnson’s pay bill and Hawley’s food aid push represent rare bipartisan pressure points in an increasingly bitter standoff.
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