Senators began talking Wednesday about how to end the government shutdown but were still stuck on Democrats’ demand to revise the House-passed stopgap that could quickly reopen the government.
The bipartisan conversations among senators on the first day of the shutdown, mostly informal huddles during floor votes, showed some softening among Democrats who are open to reopening the government without all of their demands baked into law.
The talks may have calmed nervous investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major U.S. stock indexes opened in the red before recovering losses and closing in positive territory.
Capitol Hill still had a lot of partisan distrust and no clear solution to satisfy both sides.
Republicans insist that the only way out of the partial shutdown is their “clean” seven-week funding patch, known in Congress as a continuing resolution, or “CR,” which would fund the government through Nov. 21.
“Until then, there’s nothing to negotiate, there’s no compromises to be had, there’s no games, there’s no back channels,” said Senate Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
SEE ALSO: Shutdown’s latest victim: Hundreds of Trump lawsuits across the country
All but three Senate Democrats voted against the Republican stopgap on Wednesday, on a failed 55-45 vote.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Republicans won’t get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster unless they negotiate a bipartisan deal that addresses Democrats’ concerns about rising health care costs and the Trump administration’s unilateral spending moves.
“Republicans tried to bully us, and it’s clear they can’t,” he said. “They don’t have the votes.”
The Senate has rejected the Republican stopgap and a four-week Democratic alternative three times: twice before the shutdown began and once after.
Vice President J.D. Vance predicted the shutdown would not last long because Democrats were already “cracking a little bit.”
Those cracks first appeared Tuesday when Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada Democrat, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted for the Republican stopgap bill in the hours before the shutdown began. They opposed the measure earlier last month.
Senate Republican leaders plan to keep bringing up their stopgap for a vote until five more Democrats fold and reopen the government. They said they won’t negotiate while Democrats hold government funding “hostage.”
Democrats’ alternative stopgap bill includes $1.5 trillion in health care and other spending that Republicans have slammed as a left-wing wish list.
Senate Democrats acknowledge they won’t get everything they want and have largely, although not universally, boiled down their requests to two key issues.
One is an extension of pandemic-era expansions of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire this year. The other is spending guardrails to prevent the Trump administration from ignoring congressional spending directives and clawing back funds through impoundments and rescissions.
The question is whether Democrats would accept a side deal to vote for the Republican stopgap and reopen the government with a promise of future action on their priorities.
“I prefer it to be in legislation,” said Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat, while acknowledging that the bipartisan discussions are exploring alternative ways “that would give each side confidence.”
Mr. Welch said he had some “positive interaction” with Republicans who agree that letting the expanded Obamacare subsidies lapse would hurt people in conservative states and liberal states who would have to pay more out of pocket for their health care coverage.
To vote to reopen the government, he said, “we’d have to have some progress and resolution that’s more specific than an expression of mutual concern.”
Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he and other Republicans who participated in the talks have tried to assure Democrats that they are committed to finding a solution to the Obamacare subsidies, but not a straight permanent extension as Democrats have proposed.
He said Democrats acknowledged some instances of fraud with the expanded subsidies and are willing to address those.
“So there’s some give and take back on that,” he said.
Democrats want a mechanism for ensuring that Congress extends the Obamacare subsidies before open enrollment begins Nov. 1. Some floated a shorter stopgap that would expire before that date. Most Republicans rejected that idea because the House would have to pass it, and it is not in session until next week.
Mr. Rounds said Republicans are set on passing their seven-week stopgap bill but are open to attaching a deal on Obamacare subsidies to one of the annual appropriations bills lawmakers will be working to pass during that time.
Sen. Christopher Coons, Delaware Democrat, said he could be willing to reopen the government with a “clear, identifiable path forward” on negotiating an extension of the Obamacare subsidies.
He said that something else that would help is for Republicans to allow a floor vote on the appropriations bill that funds the Health and Human Services Department. The bill was reported out of committee on a bipartisan 26-3 vote.
“It rejects Trump’s terrible cuts to NIH, CDC, HIV, AIDS research,” Mr. Coons said. “Putting that on the floor and passing it would be a big step towards giving Democrats something where we can go home and say we actually pushed back on Trump’s devastating cuts for health care.”
The Government Accountability Office has found that some cuts, such as canceled National Institutes of Health grants, were illegal impoundments.
Failing to obligate or spend congressionally approved appropriations or request that lawmakers rescind the funds violates the Impoundment Control Act, which allows a president to withhold funds only under limited circumstances by justifying to Congress a temporary deferral.
Democrats say the Trump administration has routinely flouted that law and ignored Congress’ power of the purse. They don’t want to reopen the government without ensuring President Trump will honor congressional spending directives in the Republican stopgap and the previous spending laws that the measure extends.
“If Donald Trump can blow it up on Day 2, it’s not a clean CR,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat.
Democrats included spending guardrails in their counterproposal, and many say codifying those provisions is important because they don’t trust Republicans.
Mr. Kaine said he is open to accepting public commitments from the White House and Republicans to avoid rescissions and unilateral spending cuts, but it’s too soon to say whether that would attract enough Democrats.
“We’re talking concepts,” he said. “We don’t have any real proposal yet.”
In the meantime, the White House is using the extra authority it has to manage limited funds during a shutdown to pressure Democrats.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced on social media that he had canceled funding for “early $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.” The projects that will lose funding are spread across 16 states, all but two with Democratic governors.
Mr. Vought also put $18 billion appropriated for the Hudson tunnel and the Second Avenue subway projects in New York City on hold “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”
Mr. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who are both from Brooklyn, said the Trump administration is trying to enact “revenge” while harming New York and New Jersey commuters such as nurses, teachers and first responders.
“Choking off these projects out of spite will damage America’s competitiveness and cost working families dearly,” they said.
Mr. Vought is also working with federal agencies to prepare for “imminent” government layoffs targeting nonessential civil servants, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Mr. Trump said Tuesday that firings and program cuts would target Democrats and their priorities and would, in many cases, be “irreversible.”
Mr. Vance, who made a rare appearance with Ms. Leavitt at the White House press briefing Wednesday to blame Democrats for the shutdown, said the administration is not “targeting federal agencies based on politics.”
• Jeff Mordock, Mallory Wilson and Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.