Senate Breaks Filibuster: Bipartisan Vote Opens Path to End Shutdown
“If Democrats cave on this issue, what it will say to Donald Trump is that he has a green light to go forward toward authoritarianism. And I think that would be a tragedy for this country.”
Eight Senate Democrats broke ranks with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Sunday night, joining Republicans in a test vote to end the filibuster on the revised GOP spending package. The final margin was 60-40. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote no.
Importantly, the measure omits the one-year extension of COVID-era Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that Schumer had demanded on Friday.
Republicans have instead pledged only to hold a future Senate vote on the subsidies, which are set to expire on December 31.
The procedural vote does not immediately reopen the government, but it clears the way for Senate debate on the bill. A second vote — likely within the next several days — would require only a simple majority of 51 votes for passage.
Once approved, the modified bill would move to the House for consideration.
Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reported:
The revamped bill re-opens the government through at least January 30. That buys lawmakers time to work on individual spending bills. However, the package includes full spending bills until next fall for the Department of Agriculture, veterans, and military construction programs, plus Congress.
Among the Democrats crossing the aisle were Sens. Angus King (I-ME), John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jacky Rosen (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), as per Fox News.
Reports last week suggested that a small group of Democratic senators had been prepared to move toward ending the shutdown, but were persuaded by party leaders to hold off until after the election. With assistance from their communications team, the legacy media, Democrats managed to shift blame for the shutdown onto Republicans — a strategy that contributed to the party’s sweep of key races on Tuesday night.
So, why did eight Democrats defy party leadership and vote with Republicans on Sunday night? [In Durbin’s case, he was leadership.]
Perhaps they concluded that the escalating fallout from the shutdown — flight cancellations, a shortage of air traffic controllers, constituents missing SNAP payments, and federal employees, including military personnel, Capitol Police officers, and congressional aides, working without pay — had become too severe to justify holding the government hostage over an issue Republicans were unlikely to concede on.
Pergram noted that some Democrats secured “spending priorities important to them in the appropriations bills tacked on to the package.” He added that the “new funding deadline of January 30 gives lawmakers the chance to finish the other spending bills and get their big asks into those bills. So, it was a combination of things which altered the equation.”
Asked why he defected, Sen. King told Fox, “The question was, does the shutdown further the goal of achieving some needed support for the extension of the tax credits? Our judgment was that it will not. It would not produce that result. And the evidence for that is almost seven weeks of fruitless attempts to make that happen.”
In the video below, King said he voted yea for two reasons. He was eager to “resume vital services” for his constituents and because Democrats were promised a vote on the Affordable Care Act subsidies when the shutdown ends.
Today I again voted to re-open the government, resume vital services for Maine people, put people back to work, feed the hungry and secure an opportunity to avoid a harmful hike in health care costs. pic.twitter.com/wcwUAUwXAo
— Senator Angus King (@SenAngusKing) November 10, 2025
As expected, Schumer denounced the vote, saying that by rejecting his Friday proposal to fund the ACA subsidies for one year — after which a long-term solution could be negotiated once the government reopened — Republicans had “shown that they are against any health care reform.”
“This healthcare crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home that I cannot, in good faith, support this CR that fails to address the healthcare crisis,” he said.
Below, Schumer reacts to the vote on the Senate floor.
After caving and letting enough Dem Senators vote with Republicans, Schumer faux rages to the base with promises to keep fighting. pic.twitter.com/OzBPVg2pQP
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 10, 2025
Ahead of the test vote — when it appeared likely that enough Democrats were prepared to break ranks for the measure to advance — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said, “If Democrats cave on this issue, what it will say to Donald Trump is that he has a green light to go forward toward authoritarianism. And I think that would be a tragedy for this country.”
Although Sunday night’s vote did not immediately end the shutdown, now in its 41st day, it represented the most tangible progress so far toward ending the impasse.
The mood among Republicans has shifted toward optimism.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
It’s an age old ritual to select a group to vote against leadership and depict them as mavericks.
Mavericks are as lame as a Pinto. Bring back the AMC Rebel!
Of the 8 who crossed the aisle none are up for reelection next year. 6 are in the future and 2 are retiring. This was nothing but political theater to give the Dem base someone to rail against while the rest can thump their chests.
If I were Chuck you I would be looking at retirement properties.
As we watch Schumer post videos of LYING propaganda on social media after voting “no” on the CLEAN CR, how much damage to the Republic will you tolerate before acting????
Use RICO to permanently abolish the Democrat Crime cabal Seize EVERY asset, especially the Marxist propaganda press No other criminal enterprise would be left intact. MAGA and “Republicans”
GROW A SET Democrats conspired with hostile foreign regimes to not only import as many CRIMINAL MIGRANTS AS POSSIBLE during the Kenyan’s 3rd term, they conspired to EMPTY PRISONS AND MENTAL INSTITUTIONS and FLY THOSE PEOPLE HERE in midnight flight sponsored by our traitors in the deep state. Destinations included HPN (Westchester NY)
It would be HARD to conceal the amount of evidence associated with that
It’s unlikely the Democrat crime cabal could have disappeared the mountains of evidence associated with this facet of the Democrat crime cabal.
This is the type of thing that DIRECTLY led to the rape/murder of Jocelyn Nungary, a 12 year old Texas girl, and countless others. FROM GROK: RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) can apply to immigration crimes if they’re part of a pattern of racketeering activity conducted by an organized enterprise. RICO targets ongoing criminal enterprises engaging in specific predicate offenses, like fraud, extortion, or trafficking. Some immigration-related crimes, such as visa fraud, human smuggling, or document trafficking, could qualify as predicate offenses if they meet RICO’s criteria: a structured group, repeated illegal acts over time, and an impact on interstate or foreign commerce. For example, a criminal organization systematically smuggling migrants or forging immigration documents for profit could face RICO charges. However, standalone immigration violations, like illegal entry without an organized scheme, typically wouldn’t trigger RICO. Prosecutors must prove the enterprise’s structure and a pattern (at least two predicate acts within 10 years). Penalties include up to 20 years per racketeering count, fines, and asset forfeiture.
Hiring back all the drones Trump laid off.
The GOP always caves.
They are the controlled opposition.
Only 4,000 of them that were laid off during the shutdown. The other 250,000 are still fired. No cave
Chuck I Schumer allowed the vote after all the videos of SNAP recipients showing their EBT account balance on their IPhone 17’s. The stories of people with jobs complaining about having to use their own money instead of SNAP for food. SNAP recipients should be made to reapply for benefits as a condition for receiving benefits beginning 1-1-2026.
They don’t have enough money to buy food, but they have enough money to buy an I-phone? Something doesn’t compute.
one of the best parts of this whole mess is that the msm had to cover up /admit that it was in fact the dems who caused the shutdown
america has the richest “slaves” in history
they control trillions of of other peoples money
they run the
schools
streets
businesses
msm
and the whole time they get to complain ..with impunity that the are slaves
so america continues to shift the wealth to the “slaves” and become the slaves
You know Schumer was looking for an off-ramp when Durbin votes for it. That guy is as partisan as they come, but he’s retiring so he can be a vote to reopen and protect Schumer’s left flank for AOC’s run against him.
Thune is a horrific deal maker if that was the best he could get. My total distain for both parties grows by the minute. A massive cave to gain just five votes while extending the shutdown.
There should have been a vote on HR5371 as written last night and all this extra stuff in new CR since HR5371 expires on 11/21 as written and passed by the House,
This is a total cave by the d/prog. All that’s actually happening is a reset to pre shutdown status quo, pass the 3 or 4 of 12 regular order appropriation bills and extend a clean CR till end of January.
What did you want Thune to achieve and can you demonstrate political power/votes in Senate to get it? Note I don’t like.Thune and would prefer another Majority Leader but he did about as well we could hope for under the constraints he was working within.
How many times did Thune go to the senate floor, press conferences claiming him wanted only the clean CR the house passed not some new, so called minibus ( he needs to be on the bright yellow minibus). He was the one who moved off his position joined by almost every senator in his party except for Rand Paul. The dems strong armed the bare minimum needed to get to 60, if this was such a great compromise why did they get the bare minimum?
Those spending bills should not be part of this package, stand alone votes. They have been working on those spending bills since last January, what makes you think that an extension of time until Jan. 2026 will bring a different result, All 12 bills should have been moved out of committee and to the floor months ago, well before Oct, 1, but that is a completely different topic.
Here is my prediction, the ACA tax credit will get extended on the same day that Congress leaves for the Christmas holiday period.
buck,
The Agriculture Bill, VA Bill, DoD Bill and Legislative funding bill are the only 4 of the 12 appropriations bills to have had a floor vote in the HoR. The other 8 haven’t been brought to the floor of the HoR and are still sitting in the committee of jurisdiction. Passing those four isn’t a ‘minibus’ they’ve been sitting in the Senate awaiting a vote since July/Aug. There’s not gonna be any loading up of ‘new’ pork/shenanigans in these 4 bills. Passing them isn’t objectionable.
Extending the CR still clean by the way on the rest of the funding till end Jan isn’t objectionable either. The ACA vote is just that a promise to hold a vote not a guarantee on passage nor that Trump wouldn’t veto it. In any event ACA subsidies are gonna continue regardless. The only questions on ACA is whether the ADDITIONAL Covid era subsidies that expire this year would be extended. Given that the HoR and Senate have already scuttled them once in BBB and will already have negative ads running for it why would they flip/flop and PO GoP voters as well? That’s political suicide, like being a date to Prom but trying to ditch her there and pick up different girl to bring home….that’s gonna PO everyone.
All the d/prog got out of this was a commitment to retain the RIF positions selected for termination by OMB which is a couple thousand tops. Note there doesn’t seem to be an agreement to bring back the already terminated employees to fill those positions, just a promise to authorize the positions. For that matter no promise they will be filled by either new or old employees….so the Trump admin doesn’t have to hire anyone to fill them….implicit sure, not required.
IMO the shutdown did assist the d/prog with turning up votes in VA and NJ, maybe even in NY and CA. They had something to whine to voters about and frightening their Marxist oriented ‘gimme my bennies: voting bloc seemed to have worked to get them over the hump in statewide races.
Thune is the epitome of the DC establishment GoP but he didn’t cave….on this round at least. He sure as heck can’t move the other 8 appropriation bills from HoR committee to HoR floor for passage and get them to the Senate for a vote.
Your first paragraph is exactly why we are in the position we are at this minute, The committees under new leadership have had some 10 months to get bills out of committee, to floor for more debate then a pass or fail vote,
Why did Thune not advance the bills the house sent over, Were these bills held on purpose only to be used as a bargaining chip when needed?
The House has not held a single vote since HR 5371 was passed in mid September, they had a chance to move move more spending bills out of committee and onto the floor for votes.
The entire cycle of CR’s that never end are a failure of the entire Congress yet we the people who put the same idiots back in office every cycle, we never learn a thing. The entire concept of compromise has been lost for decades, We have become more tribal by the day.. It doesn’t matter what party holds the gavel, both are failures, a bunch of people who couldn’t even secure a minor part in the local community theatre.
There is a so called bi partisan Problems Solvers Caucus, I don’t recall them solving one problem.
buck,
But they didn’t get the other bills from the HoR and there’s almost certainly log rolling to garner votes for the bills they did have that were.dependent on getting provisions into the other 8 bills and getting them to the Senate.
You’re presuming every Senator of a particular party is automatically gonna vote for legislation just b/c the bill came out of the HoR controlled by ‘their’ party. Not at all the case. Every vote gotta be earned not taken for granted. There’s no ‘Team’ dynamic going on here like in a parliamentary system.
If I was a.Senator and the things I was really concerned about for my State and my constituents were contained in the other 8 appropriation bills and you come to me telling me in essence ‘I’m the Senate Majority leader (hand selected by McConnell as one of two potential DC establishment successors) and you should trust me not to eff you later on …’ and demanded my vote in return for …well not jack b/c the bills won’t out of committee in the HoR …I’d tell you to pound sand under normal circumstances.
I can’t believe y’all are forcing me to defend Thune. I really don’t like the guy but give the devil his due, he didn’t fold and the d/prog got nothing more than a promise of a future vote on ACA Covid era subsidy and a vague promise on RIF Federal employees.
41 days shut down. My life hasn’t been affected at all. Has yours? I’m starting to think this federal leviathan is just a 40 trillion dollar money launder grift for the well-connected.
But that’s just cRaZy TaLk!
It was iind if nice to be able to get into the National Parks around me without having to deal with the Park Rangers, or pay a fee.
Aren’t the park rangers federal employees?
Yes, my life was affected. The grocery store was fairly empty of all the SNAP people running around buying Hot Pockets. It was a joy to shop for a change
There were crossfire casualties made to suffer. Some of them deserved it but some of them didn’t.
this action proves beyond a doubt that when …when the gop wants to win for the american patriots…they can
defund the socialists nowwww!
Well, it looks like the one but the good guys didn’t cave and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Unfortunately, this is going to happen again in January
“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said, “If Democrats cave on this issue, what it will say to Donald Trump is that he has a green light to go forward toward authoritarianism.”
I see. Obama’s authoritarianism was OK. Biden’s was OK. But not Trump’s.