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Senate to vote Monday on plan to reopen government

• https://www.politico.com

Party leaders and rank-and-file senators spent all day Sunday haggling over a deal to reopen the government. But Washington's painful shutdown will nonetheless drag into Day Three.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the chamber would vote on a plan at noon Monday to fund the government through Feb. 8. In an attempted concession to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, McConnell said he would take up legislation to protect some young immigrants from deportation if a deal to address their status is not reached by the time funding expires in early February.

But Democrats were not ready to call it a deal, even as McConnell implored the Senate to vote Sunday night to reopen the government. "The shutdown should stop today," he said.

Schumer said further negotiations were needed and spurned McConnell's request, pushing a vote until Monday, when hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.

"Talks will continue, but we have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides," Schumer said.

The vote Monday is expected to fail absent further progress between the two party leaders before then.

Senate Republicans will have a conference meeting at 11 a.m. Monday to discuss the state of play, aides said.

The late-night exchange capped a furious round of negotiations Sunday between Schumer and McConnell, as well as a group of deal-making senators desperate to reopen the shuttered government. Senators from both parties took a proposal to the party leaders after the centrists met for 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon.

Their proposal would reopen the government through Feb. 8 and have McConnell commit on the Senate floor to holding an immigration vote before that date — a commitment that McConnell approached but did not definitively agree to, in part because Republicans worry they could not complete an immigration debate before the next funding deadline.


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