House lawmakers to vote this evening on deal to end longest-ever U.S. government shutdown

The U.S. House of Representatives will try to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history on Wednesday, with a vote on a stopgap funding package to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.

Republicans currently hold a narrow 219-213 majority in the House. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s support for the bill is expected to keep his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their U.S. Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.

Eight Senate Democrats on Monday broke with party leadership to pass the funding package, which would extend funding through Jan. 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion US a year to its $38 trillion US in debt.

“My urgent plea of all my colleagues in the House — that means every Democrat in the House — is to think carefully, pray and finally do the right thing,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who kept his chamber in recess for nearly two months as a pressure tactic in shutdown negotiations, told reporters.

House Democrats opposed

House Democrats remain adamantly opposed, angered by the Senate deal that came less than a week after Democrats won high-profile elections in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City that many thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies.

While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Johnson has made no such promise in the House.

“They own the mess that has been created in the United States of America,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference.

Neither side appears to have won a clear victory. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 50 per cent of Americans blamed Republicans, while 47 per cent blamed Democrats.

A vote on a bill to end the shutdown is expected at around 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday. If approved by the House, the funding package would have to be signed into law by Trump.