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 dolla

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 Hou

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

AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 7, 2025   The shutdown word of the day is “trust.” As in, a complete lack of trust between the two parties is making ending the shutdown close to impossible.   While Senate GOP leaders have offered Democrats a deal to hold a vote on expiring Obamacare subsidies in exchange for re-opening the government, Democrats don’t trust that the House or President Trump will go along with it. Some Democrats, emboldened by the election results, don’t trust t

AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 6, 2025   Any hope that Tuesday’s election would kickstart the endgame on the shutdown was dashed Wednesday, as many Democrats took their strong showing at the polls as a signal to keep fighting. For his part, President Trump’s strategy appears to be browbeating Senate Republicans into ending the filibuster.   Meanwhile, the FAA announced that it will order a 10-percent cut in flights at major airports, one of several developments that demonstra

AGORA SHUTDOWN UPDATE November 5, 2025   Some records may never be broken (Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, 70 million copies of Michael Jackson’s Thriller  sold, etc.). Other records should never be broken – like the 35-day government shutdown in 2018-19.   Sadly, the White House and Congress have now achieved that dubious honor.   While discussions continue among rank-and-file Senators to find a way out of the mess, the parties’ leadership aren’t talking. And Democrat