Senate prepares to vote again on Day 8 of government shutdown

The Senate is set to begin a series of votes at 11:20 a.m. that will include procedural motions on advancing the Democratic and Republican plans to fund the government, according to a notice from Majority Whip John Barrasso’s office. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth railed against Senate Minority Leader Schumer in a post on X, pointing out that Wednesday marks one week until Oct. 15, the date when active-duty service members are set to miss their next paychecks unless lawmakers vote to reopen the government.

“T-minus 7 days until @SenSchumer’s vanity shutdown means our great troops won’t get paid,” Hegseth said, accusing the Democratic leader of caring “WAY MORE about his own reelection” than “the essential paycheck of our SELFLESS troops.”

The date is seen as a possible leverage point for Republicans as they push to peel off Democratic support for a measure to keep the government funded until Nov. 21. Meanwhile, President Trump pledged Sunday at an event to mark the Navy’s 250th anniversary in Norfolk, Virginia, to “get our service members every last penny” despite the government shutdown. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s all coming, it’s coming.”

But exactly how the issue would be resolved remains to be seen. On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he would be open to an emergency measure to pay members of the military that would come separately from a broader bill to open the government. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly chimed in at the news conference, adding, “you don’t need that.”

“Obviously there are certain constituencies, many of whom are going to be impacted in a very negative way by what’s happening here,” Thune said. “But the simplest way to end it is not try to exempt this group or that group or that group, it’s to get the government open.”

A suggestion by the White House on Tuesday that furloughed workers are not entitled to back pay at the end of the shutdown was met with pushback from members of both parties on Capitol Hill, with some Republicans saying the memo that floated the issue was not helping.

A 2019 law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump has been widely interpreted to guarantee back pay for furloughed workers after a funding lapse, but a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget said that might not be the case. The legal analysis asserted that the law meant that Congress would have to approve back pay for furloughed workers.

President Trump, asked to comment on whether furloughed workers would get back pay, said at the White House that “I would say it depends on who we’re talking about.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill on Tuesday said they believed furloughed workers would get paid after a shutdown.

“I haven’t looked at the memo specifically yet. My assumption is that furloughed workers will get back pay,” Majority Leader John Thune said. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course.”

Sen. Tom Tillis of North Carolina said he believed it was a “strategic mistake” to let furloughed workers  “think that they could potentially not get back pay.”

“I don’t think that that is a helpful discussion right now,” he said.

On Day 8 of the shutdown, the only event on the president’s schedule, aside from his usual intelligence briefing, is participating in a “roundtable on ANTIFA,” according to the White House. 

The president last month designated the loosely affiliated left-wing movement, short for “anti-fascist,” as a “major terrorist organization.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is in Portland, where the president has said ICE facilities have been “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” 

State and local officials have strongly disputed that characterization, and accused the administration of inflaming tensions on the ground. A federal judge has blocked the deployment of National Guard troops to the city.

The Senate is set to hold procedural votes midday Wednesday on dueling measures to fund the government, trying to break the impasse for a sixth time after the bills last fell short of the 60 votes needed on Monday.

The chamber has repeatedly voted on the measures as Republicans have aimed to peel off support from Democrats for their measure. Republicans have been pushing for a House-passed measure to keep the government funded until Nov. 21, while Democrats have a separate measure to fund the government through October that would also extend health insurance tax credits, which has become Democrats’ key demand in the funding fight. 

Republicans failed to pick up any new support for their measure on Monday. And with 53 Republicans in the upper chamber, support from Democrats is needed to advance a measure to fund the government. 

Just one Democrat initially crossed the aisle to support the bill in a vote last month. But on the next vote, which came last week, two more senators crossed the aisle to back it. Since then, Republicans have been unable to peel off any additional support from Democrats in two more attempts.

Airports in U.S. cities including Denver; Newark, New Jersey; and Burbank, California, experienced flight delays Monday amid shortages of air traffic controllers, according to federal flight data. 

Federal officials have flagged more air traffic control facilities for low staffing levels in recent days than they have since the summer of 2022, when the post-COVID travel boom sent delays and cancellations soaring, according to a CBS News data analysis of Federal Aviation Administration airspace advisories.

Flights into Hollywood Burbank Airport, which serves Los Angeles, were slowed until 1 a.m. Tuesday, resulting in average delays of 2.5 hours, FAA data shows. No air traffic controllers were on duty on Monday evening at the airport, California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a social media post.

According to CBS News Los Angeles, plane captains taking off from the Burbank airport were being asked to contact SoCal Approach, a San Diego-based company also known as Southern California TRACON, so they could communicate and get departure clearance. 

Read more here.

As House GOP leaders have kept the lower chamber away from Washington to put pressure on the Senate to adopt a House-passed measure to fund the government, an effort to force a vote on a measure that would compel the Justice Department to release materials related to Epstein has also been stalled in recent weeks.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California have been leading the effort, known as a discharge petition, to force the vote, which is on the verge of succeeding once lawmakers return. House GOP leaders have opposed putting the legislation on the floor, arguing it doesn’t do enough to protect victims. Though leaders control what receives a vote, a discharge petition enables members of the lower chamber to bypass leadership if they can get a majority, 218, to sign on.

The petition currently stands at 217 signatures, including all Democrats and four Republicans. And the House’s newest member, Adelita Grijalva, won a special election last month and is expected to deliver the final signature. But her swearing-in has been delayed with the House in recess. Massie has accused House Speaker Mike Johnson of “doing everything he can” to block a vote on the bill. 

When asked Tuesday whether the delay in Grijalva’s swearing in had anything to do with the Epstein petition, Johnson told reporters it has “nothing to do with that at all” and reiterated that she will be sworn in once the House returns.