ATLANTA — Georgia U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff voted with Senate Republicans on Friday evening on a plan to try to pay federal workers as both sides continue talks to reopen the government.
President Donald Trump called on senators not to leave Washington, DC, for the weekend until they have a deal to end the shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune was calling for a vote on a bill that would pay federal workers and active-duty troops who are currently reporting to work.
Democrats offered a new way forward with an agreement to extend health care subsidies for another year – but Republicans called that agreement a no-starter.
Senators from both sides took the floor after 6 p.m., hoping to convince each other to end what has become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
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“My colleagues have taken their position and we’ve taken ours, and here we are, at an impasse. But I represent a state that elected me and Donald Trump. And so, they expect us to figure it out,” Warnock said. “Here’s the proposal: one-year clean extension of the ACA subsidies. That’s not what we want. If we had it our way, we would make it permanent. That’s not what we fought for, 38 days for a one-year extension, but we’re offering that after standing for 38 days. A one-year extension. And then let’s sit down, and in the words of Scripture: ‘Let us reason together.’ Let us have a conversation. Let’s re-open the government.”
In the end, that vote failed 53-43.
Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Lujan, Ossoff, and Warnock voted with all Republicans to advance the bill that would’ve paid federal workers.
All other Democrats voted against it.