New York Times
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
January 22, 2018
The House passed a short-term spending bill to reopen the government. Next, President Trump must sign it to end the shutdown.
• Earlier in the afternoon, the Senate also voted to reopen the government after 81 senators broke the filibuster that shut it down.
• Here is the bipartisan group that reached the deal.
• Democrats had debated whether to trust Senator Mitch McConnell’s word.
House passes stopgap spending bill, sending it to Trump’s desk.
The House on Monday gave final approval to a measure that would fund the federal government for another three weeks, ending a three-day old government shutdown that threatened to do political damage to both parties.
The vote clears the way for President Trump to sign the measure into law by Monday evening, allowing thousands of furloughed federal employees to go back to work on Tuesday.
In addition to keeping the government operating through Feb. 8, the bill would extend the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program for another six years.
Senate votes to end shutdown.
The Senate voted 81-18 on Monday to end the three-day-old government shutdown, with Democrats joining Republicans to fund the government through February 8 in exchange for a promise from Republican leaders to address the fate of young, undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
“In a few hours, the government will reopen,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. “We have a lot to do.”
The House must still vote on the measure later Monday afternoon or evening, but final passage is a formality. The bill also funds the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years and delays or suspends a handful of tax increases that were to help pay for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
After a weekend of partisan finger-pointing — in which Democrats branded the shutdown the “Trump Shutdown,” after President Trump, and Republicans branded it the “Schumer shutdown” — Monday’s vote offered Republicans and Democrats a way out of an ugly impasse that threatened to cause political harm to both parties.
Mr. Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, announced that he and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, had “come to an arrangement” to adopt the three-week spending measure while continuing to negotiate a “global agreement” that would include the fate of the dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
Monday’s vote came after a frantic weekend of work by a bipartisan group of more than 20 senators, who on Sunday night were discussing a plan in which the government would stay open through early February, coupled with a promise from Mr. McConnell to allow a vote on a measure to protect the Dreamers from deportation.
Mr. McConnell pledged Monday morning that he would create a “level playing field” on immigration next month if the issue had not been resolved by then. But his promise was not enough for many Democrats, and on Monday morning, moderate Senate Democrats were still pressing for more in exchange for their votes to end the shutdown.
By noon, just before the first vote to end debate on the spending bill, the moderate Democrats were predicting passage.
“We’re going to vote to reopen the government,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat whose state is home to thousands of federal workers, told reporters. Mr. Warner said there was now a “path clear on how we’re going to get a full-year budget and we got a path clear on how we’re going to start an immigration debate.”
Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he was a “strong” yes.
“I said before trust but verify,” he said of Mr. McConnell. “He made this commitment publicly in the Senate floor. He was much more specific than he was last night. And frankly I think this is an important opportunity for him to demonstrate that he will carry through.”
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