US House to vote on deal to end longest government shutdown in history

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives will try to end the longest government shutdown in US history on Nov 12, with a vote on a stopgap funding package to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.

Republicans currently hold a narrow 219-213 majority in the House. But President Donald Trump’s support for the Bill is expected to keep his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long stand-off launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.

Eight Senate Democrats on Nov 10 broke with party leadership to pass the funding package, which would extend funding through Jan 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about US$1.8 trillion (S$2.35 trillion) a year to its US$38 trillion in debt.

"My urgent plea of all my colleagues in the House – that means every Democrat in the House – is to think carefully, pray and finally do the right thing," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who kept his chamber in recess for nearly two months as a pressure tactic in shutdown negotiations, told reporters. 

House Democrats remain adamantly opposed, angered by the Senate deal that came less than a week after Democrats won high-profile elections in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City that many thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies. While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Mr Johnson has made no such promise in the House.

"Donald Trump and Republicans believe the affordability crisis in America is made up. That's why these extremists haven’t done a damn thing to lower the high cost of living. You deserve better," House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a social media posting on Nov 12.

If approved by the House, the funding package would have to be signed into law by Mr Trump, who

heralded Senate passage as “a very big victory”

on Nov 11. 

From shutdown to Epstein

The return of the House also means that Mr Johnson could soon face a vote to release all unclassified records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, something he and Mr Trump have resisted up to now.

Mr Johnson on Nov 12 will swear in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who won a September special election to fill the Arizona seat of her late father, Raul Grijalva. She is expected to provide the final signature needed for a petition to force a House vote on the issue.

That means that after performing its constitutionally mandated duty of keeping the government funded, the House could once again be consumed by a probe into Mr Trump’s former friend, whose life and 2019 death in prison have spawned countless conspiracy theories.

The funding package also contains three full-year appropriations Bills to fund military construction, agriculture programmes including food assistance for lower-income Americans and legislative branch operations.

The package would allow eight Republican senators to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for alleged privacy violations stemming from the federal investigation of the

Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol

by Mr Trump’s supporters. It retroactively makes it illegal in most cases to obtain a senator’s phone data without disclosure and allows those whose records were obtained to sue the Justice Department for US$500,000 in damages, along with attorneys’ fees and other costs.

“Not a cent for healthcare, but Republicans wrote in a corrupt cash bonus of at least US$500k each for 8 GOP Senators,” Senator Patty Murray, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a social media posting.

The funding vote is expected late on Nov 12, and is likely to face some token Republican opposition, from Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky hardliner who opposed an initial House funding package in September along with fellow Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana. 

But the hardline House Freedom Caucus, often a stumbling block to spending bills, is not expected to attempt to block it, said Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the group's chairman, who added: “I believe we’re all going to be on board with this.” REUTERS