Donald Trump<\/a> has signalled support for the Bill, saying on Monday that \u201cwe\u2019re going to be opening up our country very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\nThe final Senate vote, 60-40, broke a gruelling stalemate that lasted more than six weeks as Democrats demanded that Republicans negotiate with them to extend healthcare tax credits that expire in January.<\/p>\n
The Republicans never did, and five moderate Democrats eventually switched their votes as federal food aid was delayed, airport delays worsened and hundreds of thousands of federal workers continued to go unpaid.<\/p>\n
After the vote, Senate majority leader John Thune thanked unpaid staff and Capitol police who stood near him on the floor. He said he realised the strain had been immense for \u201csix excruciating weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very, very happy to be able to say we are coming to the end,\u201d Mr Thune said.<\/p>\n
House speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington \u201cright now\u201d given shutdown-related travel delays.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do this as quickly as possible,\u201d said Mr Johnson, who has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a Bill to continue government funding.<\/p>\n
After weeks of negotiations, a group of three former governors \u2013 New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire senator Maggie Hassan and Independent senator Angus King of Maine \u2013 agreed to vote to advance three bipartisan annual spending Bills and extend the rest of the government funding until late January.<\/p>\n
Republicans promised to hold a vote to extend the healthcare subsidies by mid-December, but there was no guarantee of success.<\/p>\n
Ms Shaheen said on Monday that \u201cthis was the option on the table\u201d after Republicans had refused to budge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had reached a point where I think a number of us believed that the shutdown had been very effective in raising the concern about healthcare,\u201d she said, and the promise for a future vote \u201cgives us an opportunity to continue to address that going forward\u201d.<\/p>\n
The legislation includes a reversal of the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began on October 1st.<\/p>\n
It also protects federal workers against further lay-offs through January and guarantees they are paid once the shutdown is over.<\/p>\n
In addition to the trio, Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, home to tens of thousands of federal workers, also voted on Sunday in favour of moving forwards on the agreement.<\/p>\n
Illinois senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat; Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman; and Nevada senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen also voted yes.<\/p>\n
All other Democrats, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, voted against it.<\/p>\n
The moderates had expected a larger number of Democrats to vote with them, as 10 to 12 Democratic senators had been part of the negotiations.<\/p>\n
But in the end, only five switched their votes \u2013 the exact number that Republicans needed.<\/p>\n
Mr Schumer, who received blowback from his party in March when he voted to keep the government open, said he could not \u201cin good faith\u201d support it after meeting with his caucus for more than two hours on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not give up the fight,\u201d Mr Schumer said, adding that Democrats have now \u201csounded the alarm\u201d on healthcare.<\/p>\n
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy said \u201cwe could have won\u201d and giving up will only embolden Mr Trump. He said voters were on their side after overwhelming wins for Democrats in last week\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were building momentum to help save our democracy,\u201d Mr Murphy said.<\/p>\n
Independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said that striking a deal was \u201ca horrific mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n
Others gave Mr Schumer a nod of support.<\/p>\n
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries had criticised Mr Schumer in March after his vote to keep the government open.<\/p>\n
But he praised the Senate Democratic leader on Monday and expressed support for his leadership throughout the shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American people know we are on the right side of this fight,\u201d Mr Jeffries said Monday, pointing to recent election results. \u2013 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Senate passed legislation on Monday to reopen the government. It brought the longest shutdown in US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14843,969,42,43,16621,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-133628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-democratic-party","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-republican-party","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}