By WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate approved a stopgap spending bill Monday, Nov. 10 that should end the longest government shutdown in American history once the measure becomes law later this week.
The 60-40 vote sends the updated funding package back to the House. A vote in that chamber is expected Wednesday, Nov. 12 before it is sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.
Johnson
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., confirmed the plan for a vote on Wednesday evening in an interview with the Aberdeen Insider on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
MORE:Classmates seek to honor Ratzlaff who spent seven years as Vietnam POW
“This is a good legislative product,” Johnson said of the negotiated plan approved by the Senate.
Johnson has been a vocal critic of the shutdown and described it as a scenario in which neither side wins. Now, he said, the question is whether Congress can move past the shutdown and create a functional environment.
“We have real work to do,” he said during a stop in Aberdeen when he was visiting agriculture producers.
Shortly before Monday’s vote, Trump said he plans to follow the agreements included in the revised measure, including the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers who received layoff notices during the shutdown.
“I’ll abide by the deal,” Trump said. “The deal is very good.”
Republicans, he added, will soon begin work on legislation to provide direct payments to Americans to help them afford the rising cost of health insurance, one of the core disagreements between the political parties that led to the shutdown.
“We want a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “And I tell you, we are going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time.”
House members told to head to D.C.
Earlier Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., urgedrepresentatives to begin traveling back to Capitol Hill as soon as possible to ensure they arrive in time to vote on the bill to reopen the government after the measure arrives from the Senate.
His request came as airlines were forced to delay or cancel thousands of flights on the 41st day of the shutdown, a situation that could potentially impact a House vote on the stopgap spending bill if members don’t follow his advice.
“The problem we have with air travel is that our air traffic controllers are overworked and unpaid. And many of them have called in sick,” Mike Johnson said. “That’s a very stressful job and even more stressful, exponentially, when they’re having trouble providing for their families. And so air travel has been grinding to a halt in many places.”
An end in sight
The Senate-passed package will provide stopgap funding for much of the federal government through Jan. 30, 2026, giving lawmakers a couple more months to work out agreement on nine of the dozen full-year spending bills.
The package holds several other provisions, including the full-year appropriations bills for the agriculture department, the legislative branch, military construction projects and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Seven Democrats and one independent broke ranks Sunday, Nov. 9 on a procedural vote that advanced the package, drawing condemnation from some House members and outside advocacy groups unhappy that no solution was arrived at to counter skyrocketing health insurance premium increases for people in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Thune
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, where bipartisanship is required for major bills to move forward under the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
MORE: Your letters: An unfair question; the truth about the shutdown; Aberdeen’s veterans garden
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a floor speech Monday he was “grateful that the end” of the stalemate was in sight.
“We’re on the 41st day of this shutdown — nutrition benefits are in jeopardy; air travel is in an extremely precarious situation; our staffs and many, many other government workers have been working for nearly six weeks without pay,” Thune said. “I could spend an hour talking about all of the problems we’ve seen, which have snowballed the longer the shutdown has gone on. But all of us, Democrat and Republican, who voted for last night’s bill are well aware of the facts.”
Benefits for South Dakota
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, said the stopgap spending bill includes $21.9 million worth of funding he requested for projects in South Dakota. The full-year appropriations bills are particularly helpful, he said.
Rounds said they include seven of his congressionally directed spending requests, also known as earmarks. Four of those are for construction projects at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City to accommodate the future addition of B-21 bomber jets, which are under development:
-
Rounds
$4.8 million for planning and design for a Weapons Generation Facility Dormitory.
- $3.5 million for planning and design of a Communications Center.
- $4 million for 11 new munitions storage structures.
- $5.4 million for two other munitions storage structures.
Rounds’ other earmarks are:
- $1.7 million for an aircraft maintenance hangar at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls.
- $2 million for South Dakota State University’s Cottonwood Field Station renovation and expansion in western South Dakota.
- $500,000 for SDSU’s Transient Animal Research Support Facility.
Rounds issued a statement saying, “It’s now time to move forward and continue working on our regular order appropriations process, but we can’t ignore the devastating effect that six weeks of a government shutdown has had on our nation.”
MORE: John Batteen: South Dakota Legislature’s anti-cannabis crusade hits five-year mark
He said thousands of federal workers have gone without pay, millions of families have had the federal benefits they use to feed their children put at risk and the nation’s air travel system has been thrown into chaos.
“It’s my hope that these families who have suffered real damaging effects can move forward with their lives. We must work hard in the Senate to prevent a shutdown like this from happening again,” Rounds said.
Aberdeen Insider reporter Elisa Sand and South Dakota Searchlight contributed to this report.