Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Thursday that it’s “unlikely” senators will be in the Capitol voting this weekend, all but guaranteeing the government shutdown goes into next week.
“They’ll have a fourth chance tomorrow to vote to open up the government, and if that fails, we’ll give them the weekend to think about it, and then we’ll come back and vote on Monday,” Thune told reporters.
Thune’s comments come as congressional leaders and the White House remain in a stalemate on the second day of the shutdown. Thune left the door open to meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this week but seemed skeptical that a sitdown would produce a breakthrough.
Schumer said in a statement Thursday that Republicans need to work with Democrats “to reach an agreement to reopen the government and lower healthcare costs” and predicted that GOP unity will crack the longer the shutdown drags on.
Thune, however, reiterated he won’t negotiate the substance of a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies while the government is closed. He added that while he’s being updated on bipartisan talks among rank-and-file senators — and keeping the White House updated on what Democrats are floating — “it all starts with reopening the government.”
Some Democrats have floated possible concessions that could be included in a deal short of attaching an extension of the ACA subsidies to a stopgap funding bill. Those include possibly passing full-year appropriations bills or moving from the seven-week stopgap bill passed by the House to a shorter punt. Some have argued for a Nov. 1 expiration date to align with the HealthCare.gov open enrollment period.
But Thune rejected that idea, saying Democrats were “quibbling over pretty small stuff” in arguing for Nov. 1 versus the Nov. 21 deadline embedded in the House stopgap. He also warned that “there’s no way you can do a straight-up extension” of the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
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