The House of Representatives approved a bill to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history that disrupted millions of Americans and produced little political gain.
The measure passed Wednesday night despite the narrow Republican majority. Six House Democrats joined Republicans to secure passage 43 days after the shutdown began: Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (North Carolina), Adam Gray (California), Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington) and Tom Suozzi (New York). Two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie (Kentucky) and Greg Steube (Florida), voted against the bill. The final tally was 222 to 209.
President Trump is expected to sign the bill Wednesday night, allowing many federal workers to return to work Thursday.
The continuing resolution keeps most agencies at last year’s spending levels through the end of January and provides funding for some programs through next September, including payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP, which helps nearly 1 in 8 Americans, had been caught up in a court battle related to the shutdown. The bill also reverses layoffs imposed by the administration during the shutdown, provides back pay for federal employees and adds protections against further layoffs.
The central demand driving the shutdown — extensions of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at year’s end — is not addressed in the bill. As part of a deal with a bipartisan group of senators, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) agreed to hold a mid-December vote on Democratic legislation to extend those subsidies. Many Senate Democrats remain skeptical of that pledge.
“A handshake deal with my Republican colleagues to reopen the government and no guarantee to actually lower costs is simply not good enough,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said, explaining her vote against the measure.
Even if the Senate passes a subsidy extension in December, it would still need House approval. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has not promised to bring such a bill to the floor.
A lot of pain, not much gain
Political observers say shutdowns rarely achieve policy goals; the past six weeks reinforced that view. Senate Democrats’ refusal to fund the government before Oct. 1 was driven in part by pressure from their political base to use whatever leverage they had to force negotiations over the expiring ACA marketplace subsidies. That stance followed earlier moves by some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to vote with Republicans to avert a shutdown in March — a decision that angered party activists.
Senate Democrats hoped that holding firm would pressure Republicans to negotiate, especially as premiums threatened to spike without subsidy extensions. But Republicans stuck to a strategy of funding the government in regular stages. Meanwhile, millions of Americans felt the shutdown’s effects: SNAP recipients went without expected benefits, air traffic controllers and many Transportation Security Administration employees worked without pay prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to scale back flights, and countless federal workers missed paychecks.
A bipartisan cohort of seven Democrats and one independent senator who voted to end the shutdown said extending the standstill would not change the outcome and would only prolong hardship. “There was no guarantee that waiting would get us a better result, but there was a guarantee that waiting would impose suffering on more everyday people,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told NPR.
The end result closes the shutdown without resolving the Democrats’ core demand on subsidy extensions, leaving supporters to defend a deal they previously criticized as insufficient. Thune’s commitment mirrors his position during the shutdown: Republicans would negotiate subsidies only after government funding was restored, not before.
President Trump largely stayed on the sidelines of the dispute, allowing Thune to lead GOP strategy instead of intervening to force a different outcome.
What happens next
Both parties face choices that will shape their standing into next year. Senate Democrats have about a month to draft a subsidy-extension bill that could win enough Republican support for passage. Success would give Democrats a policy victory to tout heading into the 2026 midterms; failure would leave health care as a central issue for Democratic messaging, but without immediate legislative relief.
Some Republicans have expressed interest in extending subsidies if the legislation includes reforms such as fraud prevention measures and income caps. Regardless, the government remains funded only until Jan. 30, and Congress must still pass nine other appropriations bills before the continuing resolution expires.
