Outside the Beltway

The Longest Government Shutdown in US History

The standoff is in its 35th day.

James Joyner · Tuesday, November 4, 2025 · 2 comments

NBC News (“At 35 days, the government shutdown has now tied the record for longest in history“):

The lengthy standoff between President Donald Trump and congressional Democratic leaders is poised to become the longest government shutdown in American history this week.

Election Day on Tuesday, when voters will head to the polls in Virginia, New Jersey and New York, will tie the record for the longest shutdown.

If the shutdown continues into Wednesday, which lawmakers believe is almost certain, it will shatter that record, set during Trump’s first term. That 35-day federal closure in late 2018 and early 2019 resulted from a fight over Trump’s demand for a border wall, which Democrats refused to fund.

It’s a testament to the current political environment that some senators aren’t even shocked.

“I wouldn’t use the word surprised,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said. “It disappoints me.”

Though Congress has shown no signs of a deal, some senators indicated Monday that progress was being made behind the scenes.

The painful impacts from the shutdown are now coming into clearer focus. Hundreds of thousands of civilian federal workers are not getting paid, forcing many to turn to local food banks to feed their families. Meanwhile, flight delays are growing worse around the country because of air traffic controller and TSA agent staffing shortages. And 42 million Americans who rely on federal food benefits through SNAP will receive only about half of their monthly benefit in November.

“The stories from this weekend were were shameful, sickening,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech Monday. “People overwhelming food banks, handing out groceries in lieu of Halloween candy, teachers paying out of pocket to give their students extra food. Across America, appalling scenes were seen of people worried they wouldn’t be able to feed their families and even themselves.”

But party leaders on both sides of the aisle don’t appear to be moving with any urgency as the shutdown nears the five-week mark. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., will hold a vote on the same House-passed funding bill to reopen the government for a 14th time. Democrats, who are demanding that Trump negotiate with them over expiring health care tax credits before agreeing to open the government, are expected to vote down that bill yet again.

“I think it’s pretty clear, and I think tomorrow’s results may confirm this, that the American people want us to fight for them,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said of Election Day.

CNN (“Congress ties record for longest shutdown as bipartisan talks pick up steam“):

With Congress now tied for its longest-ever shutdown, a small group of fed-up lawmakers in Washington are furiously trying to end the standoff as soon as this week.

Those members insist there’s real momentum this time. Yet the potential off-ramp doesn’t appear to deliver Democrats any real win on their biggest demand of the shutdown: health care.

Talks over reopening the government are focused on putting together a funding package and giving Democrats a stand-alone vote to extend expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, according to sources familiar with the high-stakes negotiations. The deal would also include a pathway to move ahead with three bills to fund major agencies of the federal government through next September.

But given that there is no guarantee that an extension of ACA subsidies will pass the Senate – much less the House — it’s unclear whether enough Democrats will accept that proposal to reopen the government, the sources said. So it is bound to prompt sharp division among Democrats about whether a vote is enough after the damaging consequences of the shutdown standoff.

Sen. Susan Collins, the Senate’s top GOP spending leader, has been involved in a flurry of conversations in recent days to end the impasse by funding both parties’ priorities in bipartisan year-long funding bills.

“I do believe that we are finally making progress. It’s too soon to declare that this nightmare of a shutdown is over, but I’m very cautiously hopeful that it will be resolved by the end of this week,” the Maine Republican told.

There’s still a long way to go. Party leaders are still not talking. The Senate is about to fail its 14th vote on the GOP’s stopgap plan to reopen the government. And neither side expects tangible progress on Election Day with key races from New Jersey to California on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not yet certain the end is in sight. He said Monday he is “optimistic” but not necessarily “confident” bipartisan senators will reach a deal to fund the government by week’s end.

“Based on sort of my gut of how things operate, I think we’re getting close to an off ramp,” Thune said, but he cautioned: “This is unlike any other government shutdown.”

Thune also acknowledged Monday that the Senate will likely have to draft a new stopgap bill — replacing the House’s version that goes through November 21 — in order to buy Congress more time to pass those full-year spending bills. Democrats see this as an opening to support something other than the same GOP funding plan, and to have input on the new version. (One person involved in the discussions said the likely end date for the new bill would be January, though spending leaders like Collins want Congress to aim for around Christmas instead.)

That semblance of movement comes as shutdown damage is quickly racking up. Already on day 35 of the shutdown, food banks nationwide are swamped with new families, furloughed workers are applying for unemployment benefits and air traffic is snarling across the country.

Collins and others involved in the talks have been mostly secretive about exactly who and what is involved. Leadership in both parties had for days largely downplayed the talks, though they are being kept up to speed by those involved, according to one person involved in the talks. For the first time, Collins said Democrats are now contributing to these appropriations talks, but there’s still a huge problem — it doesn’t solve the looming health care cliff next year.

“I don’t know if that’ll work or not. … This has nothing to do with health care, and that’s what my Democratic colleagues have harped on,” GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said bluntly.

Democrats will soon be faced with a key question: What will they accept from Republicans after their month-long push to extend expiring enhanced Obamacare subsidies? Thune has publicly offered Democrats an up-or-down vote on those subsidies — but Democrats have said it is not enough.

I would note that Democrats were absolutely going to win all of those races regardless of a shutdown, so they can hardly be called a referendum. I also resent that the concerns expressed are for the ancillary impacts of the shutdown, rather than for the million and a half civil servants who haven’t been paid in a month—more than half of whom are nonetheless required to continue reporting to work—being used as pawns in this game. (Two million military personnel should have missed paychecks as well, but the administration creatively misappropriated funds to forestall that.)

Still, it looks like the secondary effects are starting to put some pressure on the ostensible leadership to, well, lead.

POLITICO (“‘People are tired’: Democrats splinter as shutdown nears record“):

Democrats are showing unmistakable signs of splintering as the government shutdown reaches the cusp of setting an all-time record.

While many are still demanding their colleagues dig in and fight, a critical mass of Democratic senators appear to be engaged in serious talks about bringing an end to the five-week stalemate. The shutdown is set to overtake the 35-day record Tuesday night.

The divisions among Democrats over whether it’s time to negotiate a way out — or even what that way out should be — comes as Senate Republicans grow increasingly confident about their posture, with top leaders hoping to be able to pass a funding patch by the end of the week that would reopen shuttered agencies.

To do that, they’ll need to flip at least five more Democratic votes. Double that number of senators met behind closed doors Monday night in a Capitol hideaway office.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has been involved in informal bipartisan talks since before the shutdown started, said in a brief interview afterward she hoped there would be a resolution to the shutdown this week.

“We’re having lots of active conversations,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told reporters.

The sense of fatigue with the marathon standoff — and the mounting impacts on everyday Americans, including missing food aid and air travel delays — was acknowledged by at least one senior Democrat.

“I sense that people are tired of this shutdown and all that flows from it,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader, who added that the bipartisan interlocutors he has spoken to “seem more optimistic.”

[…]

And amid signs that their colleagues could be preparing to concede, a cadre of Senate progressives warned that Democrats need to keep fighting.

“We have the moral responsibility to stand up and fight for the 15 million people who are about to lose health care,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview Monday. “What the polling tells me, and what I believe to be true, is that the vast majority of the American people are behind us not to give in to Trump or the Republicans.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he believed Democrats should continue to fight until they get an agreement to extend the subsidies. He predicted that the results of Tuesday’s off-year elections would confirm that “the American people want us to fight for them.”

“Donald Trump and the Republicans need to come to the negotiating table,” added Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

In another signal of impending movement, some rank-and-file Senate Democrats who have been involved in the bipartisan talks tried to sell senior House Democrats on a potential off-ramp to the shutdown, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the private conversations.

[…]

But many House Democrats, especially in leadership circles, are still opposed to any deal that doesn’t include a concrete legislative solution to extending the ACA subsidies. The developing Senate deal would likely include the promise of a Senate floor vote that would probably fail, paired with a possible framework for subsequent bipartisan negotiations.

“It won’t be pretty if they vote ‘yes’ over a promised process versus outcome,” one of the people involved in the conversations said, describing the view of many House Democrats. “But they’re trying.”

In addition to Shaheen and Slotkin, Democratic Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gary Peters of Michigan, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada attended the Monday night meeting, as well as Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Some who attended, but not all, are also part of the bipartisan group of senators who talked through the weekend. Their conversations have focused on passing a new funding patch to reopen agencies, reaching an understanding on moving full-year appropriations bills and scheduling a vote on ACA subsidies. Republicans have also pledged that Trump will meet with Democrats after the shutdown ends.

Cortez Masto and King have already voted multiple times to advance a House-passed stopgap spending bill that would fund the government through Nov. 21. But there is widespread agreement that this measure is now out of date and will have to be revised to extend the deadline into mid-December at least.

The dubious record will be broken tonight. Even if Senators agreed on a deal this morning, the House would need to be called back into session to vote on it.

Ultimately, the Democrats have a bad hand here. Even though the polls seem to both support the ACA subsidy extension Democrats are demanding and assign somewhat more blame for the shutdown on Republicans, their base is far more harmed by the shutdown.

Federal employees are overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning, so the GOP has no reason to care about their misery. Indeed, breaking the morale of the civil service is literally a stated goal of Russ Vought, DOGE, and other key factions of the administration.

While ACA subsidies and SNAP funding disproportionately goes to red states, Republican voters are reflexively opposed to such welfare programs, while Democrats champion them.

Interestingly, President Trump seems much more interested in ending the shutdown than his party’s congressional leadership. He has demanded that the Senate go “nuclear,” ending the filibuster, to pass the “clean CR” that has majority support in both Houses. For once, they are refusing to go along.

And, of course, the “clean CR” is question expires in a little over two weeks. Passing it at this point would have the salutory effect of allowing agencies to issue back pay their workers and fully fund SNAP and the like for the next cycle. But we’d be right back to where we started on the 21st.