A Deal to End the Shutdown Is Taking Shape

The Senate is preparing to vote on a series of bills that could end the longest federal government shutdown in history. The question now is how long the process will take.

Senate Republican leadership is lining up a vote on a bipartisan minibus — made up of three appropriations bills — and a stopgap measure that would fund the government through Jan. 31, 2026. The legislation does not include an extension to expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, which has long been a demand from Democrats to end the shutdown. Instead, there is merely a guarantee for a vote on extending the ACA subsidies in December, shortly before they expire.

The stopgap measure will include a reversal of at least some of the mass federal layoffs that have taken place since the shutdown began, according to a person familiar with the unreleased bill’s text.

The three bills that will get a vote are the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act; the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act; and the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Lawmakers said they plan to continue to negotiate appropriations bills before the continuing resolution ends next year. All were negotiated with support from Democrats.

Three people familiar with negotiations told NOTUS there are enough Senate Democrats to get the legislation passed to end the shutdown. But its future is less certain in the House, where top Democratic appropriator Rosa DeLauro slammed the legislation in a statement Sunday.

“It is unfortunate Senate Republicans prematurely released partial text of the minibus without getting agreement from all corners,” DeLauro said in a statement, referring to the top appropriators in the House and Senate. “While the Military Construction bill is better than the full-year CR those programs were funded under for 2025, it is important to place it in the context of the entire legislative package that will be considered.”

The Senate was largely quiet during the rare Sunday session, with few members trickling in and out of the chamber and many more en route back to Washington.

Republicans are cautiously optimistic that this is the way out of the shutdown that has broken the record for longest one in U.S. history.

“If we blow this window, we are going to get stuck with a yearlong CR,” Republican Sen. John Hoeven told reporters. “We’ve been working it and working it and working it and working to get to regular order. Leader Thune has always been rock solid on that, and that’s one thing that matters to Democrats.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has signaled that votes on these measures could begin as soon as Sunday evening. The issue is timing, and any individual senator could drag out the process using procedural delays. Once the package is passed in the Senate, Speaker Mike Johson would need to call the House back into session, where the legislation’s path is less clear.

Senate Democrats will huddle at 5 p.m. on Sunday to discuss the deal, with progressives in the party unlikely to be satisfied. However, Republicans only need a handful of Democrats to support the bill to get it over the line.

It’s unclear which Democrats will support the measure, with three having voted in favor of a short-term funding bill to reopen the government since the beginning of the shutdown: Democratic Sens. John Fetterman and Catherine Cortez Masto, as well as Independent Sen. Angus King.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin was skeptical the deal would end the impasse.

“I don’t expect anything from the Democrats at this point. Their demands have been so ridiculous, their demands have been so over the top,” he said. “We try to accommodate them a heck of a lot more than they try to accommodate us the last four years.”