Moderate Senate Dems Seeking Shutdown End Face Pushback

Moderate Senate Democrats pushing to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history are facing resistance to a potential deal.

Senate Democrats met for more than two hours at lunch Tuesday to discuss the parameters of the deal, The Hill reported Wednesday.

The proposal would include a plan to pass regular appropriations bills and a promised vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at year's end.

Most Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against a House-passed clean continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21. A 15th vote was scheduled for Wednesday.

The only members who have consistently crossed the aisle to vote to end the shutdown, now in its 36th day, are Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

One person familiar with Tuesday's heated caucus discussion told The Hill there appear to be at least eight Democrat votes to reopen the government — enough to end the shutdown — even as liberal senators vented frustration over the potential deal.

"To me, it looked like there were eight votes, but it could change. There's a lot to think about," the person told The Hill. "Nobody can predict the future."

A senator familiar with the behind-the-scenes negotiations told The Hill that moderate Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., have the contours of a deal and are urging more of their colleagues to sign on.

Senate sources told The Hill that Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., has also signaled she could support a deal to reopen the government.

If Shaheen, Peters and Hassan vote for a short-term spending deal, Republicans would need only two more votes — provided Cortez Masto, Fetterman and King follow suit — to end the shutdown, as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has repeatedly voted against the clean CR.

"There's a plan. We've all kind of semiagreed to it, and we're now seeing not whether [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] will support it, but whether he will not blow it up," a senator who requested anonymity to discuss the negotiations told The Hill.

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