Thirty-nine days and twenty hours had passed since the start of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history when the spark of an agreement ignited on Capitol Hill. It was just before 7:00 p.m. this Sunday, with the news that Democrats and Republicans had reached an agreement in the Senate to reopen the flow of federal government funding.
A proposal, introduced hours earlier by Senate Republicans, led by their leader, John Thune, managed to convince three rival senators: Angus King (Maine), Jeanne Saheen, and Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire). With their support, the conservative caucus now had the 60 votes needed to secure the supermajority required by Senate rules to pass significant legislation, such as budget measures.
That agreement is not yet the final stop on the journey of the shutdown, which has led to the suspension of the food stamp program for millions of people in need, pushed thousands of civil servants, deprived of their salaries, into hunger lines and sown chaos in airports across the country, but rather the beginning of the end of the shutdown.
Three extraordinary votes remained in the Senate before the end of a day that is normally a day of rest at the Capitol, which made an exception this Sunday given the circumstances. The agreement will then travel to the House of Representatives for ratification.
Not all the points of the agreement were immediately clear. But it does guarantee funding for the federal government until January 30, when, if the lack of agreement between the two parties persists, the fight could return to square one and trigger another shutdown.
The budget proposal includes a provision that Democrats had been demanding: the reinstatement of federal employees laid off during the shutdown, and a guarantee that there will be no further mass layoffs until the end of January. It also rejects Donald Trump's threat that federal employees would not receive back pay for the wages they lost during the 40-day shutdown.
Out
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had spoken in that same chamber on Friday to present his Republican rivals with a proposal to reopen the tap of public spending. His party was demanding, as a condition, a one-year postponement of the healthcare subsidy program established by the law known as Obamacare, in order to then negotiate with the other side with the administration open, as Thune has been requesting for weeks.
“The Republicans just need to say yes,” Schumer told them. And the Republicans immediately responded no.
Everything indicates that the agreement was precipitated by the decision of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to order the cancellation of hundreds of flights at the 40 major US airports starting early Friday morning to address air traffic congestion caused by air traffic controllers taking sick leave or resigning due to the government shutdown. More than 1,600 flights were canceled on Sunday, and delays continued to mount on the third day of the Trump Administration's unprecedented measure.
The government shutdown has left dozens of federal agencies closed or operating at reduced capacity due to a lack of funding. The nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers and thousands of airport security workers have not received their pay since October 1st. Many have decided to take sick leave to find another source of income to pay their mortgage, car loan, children's school fees, or simply to put food on the table.
There are 750,000 civil servants suspended without pay, who on Sunday followed the news coming from the Capitol with understandable interest. Civil servants who, like air traffic controllers, are considered “essential” were required to report to work, but without pay.
Dozens of museums, monuments, and national parks have been forced to close their doors, but if the preliminary agreement reached this Sunday materializes, they will be able to reopen in the coming days, once their public funding has been resumed.
