The Senate voted Monday evening to end the 41-day government shutdown, setting the stage for the House to reconvene later this week and send the legislation to President Trump’s desk.
The Senate voted 60-40 to pass a bill to fund military construction, Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture and the Legislative Branch through Sept. 30, 2026, and the rest of the government through Jan. 30.
Eight members of the Democratic caucus voted for the deal, breaking with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and creating a major rift within the party.
Voting yes were Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Maggie Hassan (NH), John Fetterman (PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev), Jacky Rosen (Nev), Tim Kaine (VA) and Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill).
Senator Angus King (Maine), an independent who sides with the Democrats, also voted for the measure.
Democratic senators debated Bipartisan compromise negotiated by centrist Democrats He spoke with Republican leaders and the White House for more than two hours Sunday afternoon.
Angry progressives in the House and those running for Congress next year scuttled the deal And some called on Schumer to step down as leader.
“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and must be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to keep health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, who will you fight for?” Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a leading House progressive, posted on the social media platform X.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading progressive, called the decision by seven members of the Senate Democratic caucus to vote for the bill “a very, very bad vote.”
“What it does is, first of all, it raises health care premiums for more than 20 million Americans,” he said.
Democratic centrists opposed the attacks.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who led the way in negotiating the appropriations bills and continuing to push solutions into the package – along with Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), vice chair and ranking member of the Senate and House Appropriations committees – defended Schumer from attacks.
“All those people who oppose this deal — staying in shutdown mode is not going to get us anywhere. They need to take aim at the people who are responsible. That’s President Trump,” he told CNN in an interview.
But even Shaheen’s daughter, Stephanie, who is a Democratic candidate for Congress in New Hampshire, said she “cannot support” the deal because it does not expand health insurance premium subsidies.
Senate passage of the bill sets the stage for the House to return to Washington on Wednesday to vote on the measure.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he would give House colleagues 36 hours notice to reconvene after the Senate approves the package.
House leaders called the members back on Monday night and said the lower house would vote on the bill by 4 pm on Wednesday. He also asked members of the House Rules Committee to be ready to meet by Tuesday evening to prepare the ground for the bill.
Voting has not taken place in the lower house since September 19.
President Trump said on Monday that he would “follow the deal.”
“The deal is very good,” he said, and predicted, “We’re going to open up our country very quickly.”
The bill includes language protecting federal employees laid off by the Trump administration during the shutdown and preventing the White House from attempting future reductions in force (RIF) until February of next year.
But it does not include language to extend the increased health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which are set to expire in January.
Democrats made those subsidies their top priority before the shutdown and came away empty-handed after President Trump refused to negotiate a deal to address rising health care costs.
King, who negotiated a deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-D.) in December to keep Democrats from voting on a bill to increase ACA subsidies, said that as the shutdown progressed, it became clear that Republicans would not budge in the health care fight.
“Maybe in the first week we weren’t so sure they were real. In the second week, third, fourth, fifth, sixth week, it became clear that [Democratic] The strategy was not working. They’re not going to come back and say we want to do something on the ACA,” King said.
Kaine, who negotiated with the White House to add language to the bill to retain laid-off federal workers during the shutdown, agreed with the assessment that Democrats were not going to get anything more than Republicans on health care during the shutdown.
He said that Democrats who changed their stance to vote to reopen the government have “voted repeatedly” over the past month with the Democratic strategy of “we’re not opening and we want you to act on the ACA tax credits.”
“But after 40 days, it wasn’t going to work,” he said.
Democrats became concerned about the impact on air traffic controllers, who were required to work up to 40 days without pay, leading to absenteeism, staffing shortages, and traffic problems at airports.
“When these controllers are keeping airplanes in the air safe, I don’t want them worrying about pay and problems at home,” Durbin said in explaining his vote.
According to FlightAware, more than 2,200 flights were canceled across the country on Monday.
“I think the slowing of flights for whatever reason has contributed significantly. We’re coming off the holidays. It’s something that people see, touch, feel and I think if you asked me to name one thing that caused our Democratic friends to agree… it’s the flights.”
The bill now faces a partisan battle in the House, where Republicans will have an even slimmer majority after Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-D), the winner of a special election in Arizona to fill the seat of her father, the late Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.).
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) has vowed that House Democrats will oppose the bill, although some centrist Democrats may step down from leadership positions.
Monday’s vote will trigger negotiations in the Senate on a bill to extend ACA subsidies that would come to the floor next month, though Republicans will push to reform the program.
Thune told reporters on Monday that he thinks a health care compromise is possible.
He said, “I think there’s a way forward on this. Obviously, it can’t happen without reforms. My hope is that at some point the president will be willing to do something to make health care more affordable in this country.”
Reaching an agreement will be very difficult because many Republicans in both the Senate and House view the Affordable Care Act as an unworkable framework for the future of health care.
Senator John Kennedy (R-La) said, “I don’t think there is any desire among Republicans to pursue the status quo.” “Enhancing the status quo is like putting fresh paint on rotten wood.”
