AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 13, 2025 After 43 days, the government is back open . . . for now.   President Trump signed the CR into law last night after it cleared the House. The House vote was not as close as expected, 222-209, with six Democrats voting in favor and two Republicans opposed.   While not in doubt, the vote was accompanied by bipartisan anger over a provision the Senate added that would allow Senators to sue the government for as much as half a million dollars each if the...

AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 12, 2025 The House returns from its extremely extended vacation today to take up the Senate-passed continuing resolution (CR) to re-open the government. If all goes to plan, the vote should take place around 7 pm tonight.   This being Congress, of course, nothing ever goes exactly to plan. And with an incredibly narrow majority (narrowed even further by the swearing-in, at long last, of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva [D-AZ]), the outcome of any House vote is never...

AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 10, 2025 After 40 days, the dam finally broke. Eight Democratic Senators joined with nearly all Republicans late last night to move forward on a bill to re-open the government. The plan would extend stop-gap funding until the end of January, guarantee back pay for furloughed federal employees, roll back layoffs the Trump Administration imposed during the shutdown, and promise a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies in December.   The bill still needs to pass the...