Published On 13/11/2025
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Last update: 00:57 (Mecca time)
The US House of Representatives is preparing tonight to vote on a temporary bill to end the longest government closure in the country’s history, after a crisis that lasted more than six weeks and paralyzed the work of major federal institutions, amid a sharp division within the ranks of the Democratic Party.
Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said that the vote on the funding package will take place tonight local time, calling on his colleagues from both parties to “think carefully and do the right thing in the end.”
For her part, White House spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt expressed President Donald Trump’s hope to sign the bill “tonight” to end the lockdown.
The project provides for funding the government until next January 30, including resuming suspended food aid, paying the wages of hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and operating the malfunctioning air traffic control system.
The project requires a simple majority in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans by a narrow margin (219 seats compared to 213 for Democrats).
Eight Democratic senators defected from their party’s leadership over the weekend, allowing the interim funding package to pass. This sparked sharp divisions within the Democratic Party, as many believed that the extension of federal health insurance subsidies, which expire at the end of the year, should have been adhered to.
House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that his party will introduce separate legislation to extend these subsidies for three years, adding that Republicans and Trump are “ignoring the country’s worsening cost of living crisis.”
These developments came days after Democrats won key local elections in New Jersey, Virginia and New York, which were seen as an indication of voter dissatisfaction with Republican economic policies. However, Trump maintained his position within his party, declaring during a Veterans Day speech that “the country is reopening, and it should never have been closed.”
The closure, which has entered its forty-third day, has deprived about one million federal employees of their salaries and disrupted food programs for low-income citizens, in addition to chaos at airports due to the lack of air traffic controllers.
The House of Representatives is expected to approve the bill late tonight, after which it will be presented to President Trump for his signature and end the crisis that has cost the American economy billions of dollars in losses and sparked widespread controversy in the management of federal financial affairs.