For several weeks now, the Senate has attempted, unsuccessfully, on 13 separate occasions to advance a short-term funding bill to reopen the government. But now, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, that bill has a pretty big problem: If it were to pass the Senate in the next few days, it wouldn’t reopen the government for long enough.
“The date will have to change,” Thune said Monday.
Had the Senate passed the short-term government funding bill passed by the House at or before the start of the shutdown, it would have extended the funding deadline by seven weeks (until Nov. 21), allowing congressional budget managers nearly two months to continue their work on full-year funding bills before another funding deadline.
But that was 34 days ago. And now, on November 3, those seven weeks of leeway that the short-term bill would have given appropriators have been reduced to two and a half weeks.
Thune said the Nov. 21 funding deadline in the House bill won’t give lawmakers enough time to work on full-year appropriations before facing another shutdown. Therefore, the Senate’s new strategy for government funding will involve some kind of change in the date, he said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters as he stands outside his office at the U.S. Capitol on day 29 of the federal government shutdown, October 29, 2025 in Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“That date is lost,” Thune told reporters Monday. “So now it’s a question of what the next date is.”
Thune said he was open to ideas about new deadlines, including changing the short-term funding bill to keep the government open until early 2026.
There are several ways the Senate could change the date if a bill like the one supported by Republicans ever had the Democratic support needed to advance. Thune kept a variety of possibilities on the table: The Senate could pass the House bill and then amend it, or it could start with an entirely new bill.
But in any case, if the Senate finally passes a funding bill with a new date, the House will have to go back to town to vote on it. The Senate bill won’t just be able to land directly on President Donald Trump’s desk. And that means President Mike Johnson might have to summon the House of Representatives to Washington for the first time in weeks if the Senate finally acts.
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 3, 2025, in Washington.
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There is still no clear path out of the lockdown. Democrats continue to insist that Republicans must engage in negotiations on health care to keep the government funded.
But after a weekend of conversations among some grassroots members, Thune said he’s optimistic things could be changing.
“Based on my gut feeling about how these things work, I think we’re approaching an off-ramp,” Thune said. “But again, I don’t know what: This is different than any kind of government shutdown in terms of the way Democrats are reacting.”
Thune suggested that little has changed about what Republicans are willing to offer Democrats in exchange for the remaining votes they need to reopen the government. The offers are still about process and not health care, as Democrats have demanded, so it is not yet clear whether this will be enough to secure the votes to move forward.
