Shutdown to last until at least Monday as Senate Democrats reject stopgap bill for 10th time

A 10th Senate vote on a stopgap bill to fund the government through Nov. 21 failed Thursday, ensuring the government shutdown will continue for at least a few more days.

The Senate is set to adjourn later Thursday until Monday, the next possible opportunity for lawmakers to reopen the government.

Senate Democrats are filibustering the stopgap bill in hopes of securing a bipartisan negotiation on their health care and spending priorities, particularly an extension of the COVID-era expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire later this year.

The Senate needs 60 votes to end the filibuster, but the high-water mark on all 10 votes has been 55.

Of the 47 Democratic senators and independents who caucus with them, only three have voted to stop the shutdown.

Senate Republicans have said they’ll keep holding votes on the bill until five more Democrats join them and reopen the government.

The GOP is also planning to offer a test vote later Thursday for proceeding to a package of bipartisan full-year appropriations bills, which ultimately if passed through both chambers, could reopen the government a handful of agencies at a time.

Several Senate Democrats have said they will oppose proceeding to the full-year appropriations bills for the same reasons they’re filibustering the temporary stopgap: They want a broader bipartisan negotiation that includes a plan to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he has offered Democrats a future vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies if they reopen the government first.

“I’ve said if you need a vote, we can guarantee you get a vote by a date certain,” Mr. Thune said on MSNBC. “At some point, Democrats have to take ’yes’ for an answer.”

Mr. Thune added that he could only guarantee the process for a vote, not the outcome of it.

“I can’t guarantee it’s going to pass,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Mr. Thune “has not come to me with any proposal at this point.”

Other Democrats have said the promise of a future vote is not enough.

“I do not trust that they will live up to that, and so it should be nearly simultaneous,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Democrat, said.

A bipartisan group of senators that has been discussing ways to end the shutdown has floated some options toward that end.

One option discussed, as first reported by Punchbowl News and confirmed by senators involved, is a vote to reopen the government immediately followed by a vote to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for a year. Those votes would also have to be accompanied by a commitment to a longer-term solution on the Obamacare subsidies, and the structure of that is among the things that senators said would be determinative on whether such a path forward is feasible.