The partial shutdown of the federal government has now been ongoing for over 40 days, but may soon draw to an end. According to multiple reports, a group of eight Senate Democrats crossed the aisle on Sunday to join Republicans in a push to end the shutdown. Senators Angus King (I-Maine), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) broke from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to support a GOP-led stopgap measure that would provide funding for the federal government through January.

Democrats have been lobbying for subsidies for expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) provisions, including providing health care to illegal immigrants and have refused to negotiate with Republicans to reopen the government unless such measures are funded. Notably, the deal brokered Sunday between the Senate GOP and Democrat defectors does not include any such provisions.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives previously passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government, which was rejected by Senate Democrats. Sunday’s vote was the first in a series that will be necessary to modify the original House CR and flank it with a trio of spending bills, which Republicans are attempting to use to fund the government, rather than relying on another CR or passing dense omnibus spending packages. Whatever changes are made in the Senate will need to then be returned to the House before President Donald Trump can sign the spending provisions into law.

For his part, the president praised the move to end the shutdown while also backing Republicans in refusing to concede to Democrats’ demands, telling reporters Sunday, “It looks like we’re getting very close on the shutdown!” However, he added, “We’ll never agree to give any substantial money — or any money — to prisoners or illegals who come into our country, and I think the Democrats understand that. And it looks like we’re getting close to the shutdown ending.”

King, the Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, explained why he joined with Republicans to begin ending the shutdown. “It wasn’t working. How long would it take to not get a response to say it isn’t working? In other words, it’s been six weeks. The Republicans made it clear they weren’t going to discuss the health care issue — the Affordable Care Act tax credits — until the shutdown was over,” the senator said. “Would it change in a week, or another week, or after Thanksgiving or Christmas? There’s no evidence that it would,” he continued. “So we were faced with a strategy, or a series of steps, that wasn’t working to achieve the goal we wanted with regard to the ACA — but that was at the same time creating hardship and difficulty for millions of people across this country. I believe that we are closer tonight to a vote on the ACA tax credits than we were this morning.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) pledged that, if Democrats join with Republicans to reopen the federal government, then he would allow Democrats to draft and present a bill concerning the ACA provisions that they have made the focal point of their shutdown negotiations. “That is a big step, because otherwise there’s no way for the minority to get a bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It has to be through the office of the Majority Leader,” King said of Thune’s concession. “The sum is that we are closer to the possibility of work on the ACA tax credits for the people of this country than we were yesterday, a week ago, two weeks ago, or a month ago,” he continued. “So this agreement tonight is a win for the American people. It’s a win for those who are so insistent — and whom I hear from all the time — saying, ‘Protect our health care.’ Our judgment is that the best way to do that is to get a bill on the floor.”

“Is there a guarantee it will pass? No,” the former Maine governor admitted. “Here’s the way I would put it: as I assessed it, there was zero chance of dealing with the ACA issue as long as the shutdown continued. Now, I don’t know — maybe fifty-fifty.”

Other progressives, however, were less than thrilled that their fellow Democrats crossed the aisle. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for example, called the move “a very, very bad vote.” The socialist senator quipped, “As everybody knows, just on Tuesday, we had an election all over this country, and what the election showed is that the American people want us to stand up to Trumpism, to his war against working-class people, to his authoritarianism. That is what the American people wanted. But tonight, that is not what happened.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also excoriated the deal. “America is far too expensive. We will not support spending legislation advanced by Senate Republicans that fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We will fight the GOP bill in the House of Representatives,” Jeffries pledged, without acknowledging the eight Democrats backing the effort to end the shutdown. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote on social media, “Caving on a deal that doesn’t fix health care is, and always has been, a giant betrayal of the American people. Hold the line. Save health care. I’m a NO on anything that doesn’t extend ACA subsidies.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Quena González, who serves as senior director of Government Affairs at Family Research Council, provided an analysis of the current situation.

“After 40 days and 40 nights, last night enough congressional Democrats give up the strategy of trying to drown out Republicans with their talking points and agreed to a compromise,” he observed. “All but a handful of Senate Democrats had been demanding that the Republican majority help them continue COVID-era Obamacare subsidies; aided by a friendly media, they were trying to best the historical odds that the party that shuts down government never wins policy concessions and always loses the public relations battle.”

González continued, “But Republicans held together, the torrent of disinformation failed, and the flood waters of disinformation appear to be receding. Democrats staged the now-longest government shutdown in American history, and have lost; their key policy demand, a multi-year or permanent renewal of the Biden administration’s COVID subsidies for Obamacare, has failed. These are subsidies they passed in 2022 without a single Republican vote, subsidies they chose to sunset this year.”

“Republicans have never voted for expanded COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that blue states are using to force taxpayers to subsidize abortions and so-called ‘gender transition’ procedures, and they shouldn’t start now,” he added.

“The fight to protect taxpayers from funding abortions and ‘gender transition’ procedures is just beginning; Republican Senate Leader Thune is making good on his promise to allow a vote on extending the Obamacare COVID subsidies,” González concluded. “That vote is far from certain to pass; now, more than ever, pro-life and pro-truth voters need to weigh in with their representative and senators to insist that any vote to extend the subsidies carry the stipulation that they cannot be used to kill the unborn or harm people, often children, who struggle with their identity. FRC is working with lawmakers on solid legislative language, but every lawmaker needs to hear from pro-life, pro-family voters now.”