POLITICO (“Senate will vote Friday to advance shutdown-ending deal, Thune tells Republicans“):
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told fellow Republicans in a private lunch that he plans to hold a vote Friday that could pave the way to end the government shutdown, according to two people in the room who were granted anonymity to describe his comments.
The plan, the people said, is to bring up the House-passed continuing resolution that Democrats have repeatedly rejected and then seek to amend it with a new expiration date very likely in January as well as a negotiated package of three full-year spending bills.
While Thune believed the plan would win the support of enough Democrats to advance, Democratic senators emerged from their own private lunch determined to seek out a better deal, and they are expected to block the House CR again absent additional progress in negotiations, according to two other people granted anonymity to describe the deliberations.
In any case, Senate GOP leaders are preparing to keep lawmakers in Washington to try and force a resolution to the record-breaking shutdown. Asked if the chamber will be in through the weekend, Majority Whip John Barrasso said “yes.”
Even if an agreement is reached in the coming days, finalizing the deal could take days due to procedural hurdles and objections from senators.
Asked if they were moving closer to an agreement, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — who has helped lead the bipartisan talks — told reporters after the Democratic lunch she didn’t know. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “very good, productive meeting.”
Government Executive (“There is bipartisan interest in federal worker layoff protections in any deal to reopen government“):
Congress is considering a proposal to reverse some federal employee layoffs as part of a deal to reopen government, lawmakers said on Thursday, as negotiations continue to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Lawmakers in both parties are floating a mandate the Trump administration walk back the more than 4,000 reductions in force agencies issued in October as part of the potential deal currently taking shape. That proposal would provide full-year appropriations for a select few agencies, while offering stopgap funding for the rest of government through a to-be-determined date.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers have been discussing the proposal in recent days, as well as a separate plan to avoid large increases to health care premiums for millions of Americans next year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said on Thursday Republicans had sent over to Democrats a proposal on the spending provisions of an agreement, but did not lay out the details.
The Atlantic (“Just When It Looked Like the Shutdown Might End“):
In the hours before Democrats’ electoral victories Tuesday night, the end of the government shutdown seemed near. Several Democratic senators had spent the day quietly discussing a potential bipartisan settlement. Republican leaders had expressed confidence that once the “radical left” activists had their say at the polls, moderate lawmakers would have enough political cover to cave and reopen the government. President Donald Trump had been saying that Democrats were to blame for what is now the longest shutdown in U.S. history and would pay the price politically.
All of that changed as the vote totals rolled in. Democrats’ resounding statewide victories in Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, and elsewhere highlighted a more robust repudiation of Trump and his party than politicians from either side of the aisle had expected. Now both parties are recalibrating their shutdown strategies while the White House weighs a more direct role in cutting a deal. Any prospect of the government reopening this week appears to be slipping away.
Some Democrats feel like they have finally landed a clean punch after nine months of taking body blows from a pugilistic president. Letting up now, they are telling their more moderate colleagues, would be akin to surrender after voters gave their party its first burst of political moxie since Trump won a return ticket to the White House 12 months ago.
Meanwhile, we’re experiencing crippling shutdowns to our air travel system and a million and a half federal workers haven’t been paid in six weeks. Members of Congress continue to be paid, naturally.
