The Senate smashed through procedural hurdles and advanced its package to reopen the government, with the onus of ending the shutdown now falling on the House. (Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
The votes went deep into Monday night on the shutdown’s 41st day and resulted in an updated continuing resolution (CR) being combined with a trio of spending bills in a minibus package that is now headed to the House.
Whether the Senate would get to this point was in the air for much of last week and even earlier in the day. On Monday, lawmakers were riding high after smashing through the package’s first procedural test, but concerns of objections and other procedural maneuvers threatened to derail the process.
"I think everybody's pretty united [behind] this bill," Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said. "We want to reopen the government."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus demanded throughout the entirety of the shutdown that they would only vote to reopen the government if they received an ironclad deal on expiring Obamacare subsidies.
But that deal, or at least the one that Democrats wanted, never materialized. Instead, eight Senate Democrats took the offer that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has made since the beginning: A guarantee to vote on legislation that would deal with the subsidies.
SENATE HOPES TO BLOW THROUGH PROCEDURAL HURDLES IN BID TO REOPEN GOVERNMENT
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., briefs the media on the timeline to possibly end the government shutdown in the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, Nov. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
"If you wait another week, they're going to get hurt more, another month or even more," Kaine said. "So what got me over the line was the pledge that they were able to give the federal employees."
On the House side, it appears GOP leaders are eager to move quickly on ending the prolonged shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., earlier Monday told Fox News Digital that he would bring the House back into session "immediately" upon Senate passage of the legislation.
He later told House Republicans on a lawmaker-only call that he anticipated a vote in their chamber midweek at the earliest, Fox News Digital was told.
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"We're going to plan on voting, on being here, at least by Wednesday," Johnson said. "It is possible that things could shift a little bit later in the week, but right now we think we're on track for a vote on Wednesday. So we need you here."
Johnson signaled the House would not move to fast-track the legislation via suspension of the rules however, which would bypass procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the passage threshold to two-thirds of the chamber.
It's not a surprising move given House Democratic leaders' opposition to the bill.
He said, however, that the House Rules Committee should be ready to move by Tuesday at the earliest.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-ends-41-day-government-shutdown-stalemate-sends-bipartisan-deal-house