Senate to reconvene on Monday amid funding stalemate as the government shutdown drags on

WASHINGTON — The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. ET on Monday as the government shutdown drags on into its fifth week as of Wednesday.

Monday marks day 27 of the shutdown, which is now the second-longest in history. The longest occurred during President Donald Trump’s first term, lasting 35 days through December 2018 into January 2019.

This comes as the House remains out of session this week, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers remain at a stalemate on finding a government funding solution.

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Union representing federal workers calls on lawmakers to pass short-term spending bill

The president of the country’s largest union representing federal workers is calling on lawmakers on Monday to pass a short-term spending bill to end the shutdown.

“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay — today,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. The statement was first shared with NBC News.

The American Federation of Government Employees represents over 800,000 federal and Washington, D.C., government workers.

“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike,” Kelley said.

Senate Republicans have failed to pass a clean short-term measure as Democrats dig in on health care priorities, specifically extending subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

Trump blames Democrats for shutdown, air traffic controller shortages

Speaking with journalists on Air Force One en route to Japan on Monday, President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown and resulting air traffic controller shortages.

Asked whether there was a way for the government to pay air traffic controllers as the key employees miss paychecks, the president replied, “Yeah, there is,” though did not elaborate on how those controllers could be paid.

Trump instead pivoted to blaming Democrats for the shutdown and called on Democrats to vote for a clean continuing resolution to fund the government.

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“The Democrats can solve that problem with air traffic control,” he said. “All they have to do is say, ‘The country’s open’. We only need five votes. The Republicans are with us. We only need five votes. So let’s see what happens.”

“I would imagine that gets taken care of, not only the controllers, but other people too,” Trump added.

Senate fails to advance bill that would have provided pay for some federal workers during shutdown

The Senate failed to advance Sen. Ron Johnson’s, R-Wis., bill last week that would have provided pay to some federal workers during the shutdown.

It failed Thursday by a vote of 55-45. It would have needed 60 votes to advance.

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., voted with all Republicans to advance the bill. All other Democrats voted against it, effectively blocking it from advancing.

Majority Leader John Thune flipped his vote to a no at the end of the roll call, a procedural move that allows the legislation to be more quickly reconsidered in the future.

There are a few Senators who have been consistently voting against their party during the repeated effort by Republicans over the past few weeks to pass a clean funding bill that would reopen the government through Nov. 21. This vote broke differently. Most of those senators voted with their party on this bill.

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Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who has been opposing the short-term funding bill, voted to advance Johnson’s bill today. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Independent Angus King, who have been consistently voting for the stopgap funding bill despite Democratic opposition to it, stuck with Democrats and voted to oppose this legislation.

Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote both for the short-term funding bill and this bill.