How the shutdown will end

IN THIS EDITION

Remember the House? They’re back

House GOP moderates’ Obamacare moment

Utah surprise raises redistricting pressure in red states

Tech: Google backs three bills on scams

THE TOP

Remember the House? They’re back

Happy Wednesday morning.

We want to welcome back members of the House of Representatives to Capitol Hill. Remember — the big white building with the giant dome is the Capitol. That’s where the House floor is. We know, it’s been a while.

By midnight tonight, the federal government should be open for the first time since Oct. 1. This has been the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, disrupting the lives of millions of Americans.

But these last six weeks have provided yet another demonstration that shutdowns are substantively pointless as a negotiating tactic. The instigating party — in this case, the Democrats — never wins any policy victories when the government is closed down.

Know before you go. Very early this morning — around 1:30 a.m. — the House Rules Committee approved a resolution allowing the chamber to take up the Senate-passed funding package to reopen the government.

This came after Republicans defeated Democratic efforts to amend the bill, including adding an extension of expiring Obamacare premium subsidies. This Rules resolution will allow the GOP leadership to bring the Jan. 30 CR plus a three-bill minibus package to the floor for a vote today.

At 4 p.m., Speaker Mike Johnson will swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who won the special election to replace her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), on Sept. 23. This unprecedented delay has infuriated Democrats and set an ugly new precedent for the House.

The Republican leadership will then begin the debate on the funding package, with a rule vote an hour later. Final passage of the CR-minibus package is projected for around 7 p.m. It’ll be later than that. But we’ll keep you posted.

We don’t expect a marathon speech from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on this package. Senate Democrats consented to speeding up passage in their chamber. And there’s really no reason for Jeffries to drag this process out any further, Democratic aides said.

But remember that the House Republican leadership needs to make sure that all of their 219 members are in town. With a two-vote margin, Johnson and Republicans will have no votes to spare. The aviation map was looking pretty good Tuesday — just 10% of commercial flights were disrupted compared to 45% Monday, according to Flighty.

The Republican side. For such a gigantic vote, the House Republican leadership and the Trump administration seem relatively calm about the support for this package among their rank-and-file. There are no immediate plans for President Donald Trump to engage in whipping House Republicans, although we’ll see where today ends up.

As we reported Monday, there are a few names you should keep an eye on. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has voted against most government funding bills under Johnson’s leadership. Trump is pushing a primary challenger to Massie.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has used the 50-plus days out of session to begin a makeover of her political identity. Greene has sharply criticized Johnson (that’s not new) for keeping the House out of session, doing nothing to get Trump’s agenda into law and ignoring the skyrocketing cost of living for average Americans.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) is always a wild card. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) often takes some work to get to yes, as well.

Even after 54 days out of Washington, the House Republican leadership has no plans to hold a GOP conference meeting because members are arriving throughout the day.

Democratic vibes. The Democrats’ strategy in sparking the shutdown didn’t work. They gambled that Trump would abandon Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to cut a deal with Democrats. He didn’t. The strategy was out of the first-term Trump playbook. Trump now has two congressional leaders he trusts to execute his agenda. In the first term, Trump had none.

Jeffries kept his caucus united throughout the shutdown, unlike Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Just one House Democrat — Rep. Jared Golden (Maine) — voted for the CR six weeks ago. Since then, House Democrats have largely been speaking from the same message book.

Several House Democrats have come out in favor of dumping Schumer. This is just hot air, since House Democrats have absolutely no say in who the Senate Democratic leader is. No one is seeking their input, although it’s another bad headline for Schumer.

Some rank-and-file Democrats are already griping to us privately about how party leaders are talking about the cave. One House Democrat said that the party should’ve said it’s time to open up the government, and now it’s on Republicans to fix skyrocketing health care costs.

Republicans believe a handful of Democrats will vote for this package — and they’re probably right. Golden is an expected yes, and several other names are being floated.

Johnson’s next moves. After today’s vote, Johnson is sending the House home for the week. Johnson warned of “long days and long nights here for the foreseeable future” on Capitol Hill. But not this week, apparently.

Johnson has three main challenges in the coming weeks.

1) The new CR only runs for 79 days. Yes, this is a bummer. And the next phase of the FY2026 spending fight is even more difficult. Johnson, Thune, Schumer, Jeffries and the “Four Corners” appropriators will have to find agreement on the most contentious bills, including Labor-HHS, Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense and Homeland Security.

2) Obamacare premium tax credits expire at the end of this year. Nothing has changed about this despite the shutdown. To forestall moderate Republicans signing onto a discharge petition calling for a subsidies extension, Johnson is going to have to show he’s serious about passing a health-care reform bill. Johnson wants to get something passed by the end of the year — just 49 days away. That’s an extremely short timeframe, especially with the holiday season coming up.

Johnson’s leadership team is cool to the idea of using reconciliation to achieve this. But they have their work cut out for them.

3) In the House Rules Committee Tuesday night, several Republicans — Reps. Chip Roy (Texas) and Austin Scott (Ga.), for example, expressed anger about provision in the Legislative Branch spending bill that allows senators to sue the government if their phone records were turned over to the Justice Department. Roy said the provision needs to be repealed — and sounded serious about it.

4) By the end of today, the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition will hit 218 signatures. This means the full House will have to go on record whether they support or oppose the release of the full Epstein files by the Justice Department. This will be used against vulnerable Republicans in 2026 if they vote no.

– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

HEALTH HUSTLE

House GOP moderates’ Obamacare moment

Moderate House Republicans seeking an extension of the boosted Obamacare subsidies are stepping into a high-stakes political moment.

In the wake of a record-breaking government shutdown, these House GOP lawmakers will need to plot a way over the next few weeks to overcome their conference’s widespread distaste for the enhanced premium tax credits. Speaker Mike Johnson has made it clear he can’t guarantee a bill extending the subsidies makes it to the floor, even if the Senate is able to pass legislation.

For weeks, the shutdown has cooled — but not stopped — House activity around the Obamacare cliff. The House has been out of session since Sept. 19.

But there have been some talks between a few House Republicans and senators amid the funding fight. And lawmakers put forward several new bipartisan proposals to extend the credits with reforms to court GOP support. Those include income caps and measures to crack down on fraud.

House GOP backers could propose additional options for extensions with these sorts of reforms. They could also go further to address the credits being paid through insurance companies. President Donald Trump recently seized on that complaint.

Getting a vote. Still, the biggest problem for these House Republicans is finding a path to the floor.

There’s been some chatter about a discharge petition option among House GOP moderates, but there haven’t been serious discussions about that tactic yet.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said Democrats may push a discharge petition. Jeffries told reporters Tuesday night he hadn’t had any conversations with Republicans about it.

The best option for House Republicans will likely be trying to build momentum around any Senate deal to extend the credits. So it benefits these GOP members to make their ideas known now, as Senate backers hope to craft a bill with a shot of passing the House.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune promised a December vote on the issue as part of the deal to reopen the government.

It’s worth noting that the House Republicans who back an Obamacare subsidy extension have a lot at stake. Many of them represent swing seats, something Trump and GOP leaders can’t ignore after the Nov. 4 Democratic wipeout. They’re feeling political pressure over rising health care costs. Democrats put a huge spotlight on that pain point with the shutdown fight.

Key Republicans also say they want to work on a broader health care package, but that’s an even more complicated task.

Senate state-of-play. Senate Democrats, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), were already exchanging proposals with Republicans for an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies as of Monday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Ten GOP Senate offices have been in touch with Shaheen, a lead backer of the extension effort, according to sources involved in the talks. That includes Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Cassidy told us HELP will hold hearings on the issue soon.

Shaheen has expressed openness to key changes Republicans want, including income caps and requiring minimum payments to decrease fraud.

“If we want to get a bill that has bipartisan support, we’ve got to address some of those issues,” Shaheen said. “I vote that we should do that, because I think we need a bipartisan bill.”

— Laura Weiss, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan

REDISTRICTING WARS

Utah surprise raises redistricting pressure in red states

A string of Democratic victories from coast to coast has eaten into the clear advantage House Republicans once held in the mid-decade redistricting wars.

That’s left the GOP increasingly reliant on the remaining red states, mainly Indiana, Florida and possibly Kansas.

Shortly before 2 a.m. ET Tuesday morning, a Utah state judge dealt Republicans a shocking blow: a new congressional map with a safe blue seat in Salt Lake County.

“The Utah thing caught everyone by surprise,” Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) said. “I’ve not seen anything until today that surprised me. This looks like judicial overreach.”

That unexpected ruling was the latest in a series of unwelcome developments for House Republicans and President Donald Trump, who began this effort to shore up control of the chamber no matter what happens in the 2026 midterms.

Republicans lost as many as five House seats in California with last week’s passage of Prop 50. A compromise map in Ohio left Democratic prospects intact in three swing seats. And a Democratic play to redistrict three new seats in Virginia appears to be going according to plan.

North Carolina, Texas and Missouri have passed new maps that favor the GOP. But other states have lagged, as reluctant lawmakers and political geography threaten to blunt their gains.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rod Bray has consistently said his chamber doesn’t have the votes to push through redistricting, despite White House pressure. And the Kansas legislature hasn’t been able to muster the votes to petition itself into a special session. Success in those states could net three more Republican seats.

Florida will begin exploring redistricting next year and could yield anywhere from two to five GOP seats. Republicans may be eager to go big after recent losses, but they’ll have to avoid stretching their South Florida voters too thin.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming Voting Rights Act decision in the Louisiana case is another wild card.

Utah. The new map in Utah was submitted by the plaintiffs who sued to overturn the map the legislature implemented for 2022. That proposal created a deep-blue seat that former Vice President Kamala Harris would have won by about 24 points.

The other three seats remain safely Republican. But the GOP now has to deal with the fact that it has four incumbent members and only three districts.

This map draws GOP Rep. Mike Kennedy in with fellow GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy. It maintains much of Republican Rep. Blake Moore’s northern Utah district. The new version of Rep. Burgess Owens’ district includes much of his current turf. Of course, these members could run in any district.

Republicans hoped the judge would accept the legislature’s proposed map, which created a competitive seat that Trump would have carried by two points and a light red seat that Trump would have carried by seven points.

In a favorable environment, Democrats could pick up both seats, although they could also lose both. Now, they are guaranteed one.

Republicans will appeal this decision to the Utah Supreme Court, claiming the state’s constitution mandates that the legislature must draw the congressional map. But many party operatives aren’t hopeful.

– Ally Mutnick and Laura Weiss

Tech: Google backs three bills on scams

Google is backing three bipartisan bills today designed to combat scams, two of which have advanced on the Hill in recent weeks.

The endorsements, which are aimed at giving the legislation extra momentum, come on the same day Google is suing China-based makers of phishing software in federal court.

The bills include the GUARD Act, the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act and the SCAM Act.

“We encourage Congress to enact these crucial bills and help bring a decisive end to the financial harm and damage wrought by foreign cybercriminals,” Google’s General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado writes in a blog post today.

The GUARD Act is led by Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) on the Senate side and Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) in the House. It would help state and local authorities use federal grants to probe fraud and scams targeting older Americans.

The robocalls bill comes from Sens. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). It “would establish a taskforce focused on how to best block foreign-originated illegal robocalls,” in DeLaine Prado’s words. The proposal advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on Oct. 21.

And the SCAM Act would trigger the formation of a national strategy on so-called “scam compounds” — facilities where trafficking victims are forced to carry out fraud. It would also support those trafficking survivors.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) sponsored the third bill, which also made it out of committee in October.

Google has been looking for more compromises to appeal to Washington. The tech giant also faces intense pressure from the government, including from federal courts that have concluded it maintained illegal monopolies in search and digital advertising.

Going to court. Google is also suing “bad actors” behind a software suite known as Lighthouse. Scammers use it to send phishing texts and set up fake websites to harvest victims’ information, according to the complaint.

The defendants were behind a scheme that bilked more than a million people, Google said. It has specialized in phony texts about unpaid tolls and tickets.

Google alleged the defendants are “misappropriating Google branding” and causing financial and reputational harm to the company. It sued under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Lanham Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

— Ben Brody

THE CAMPAIGN

Kentucky news. Dale Romans, a longtime Kentucky horse racing figure, is entering the Bluegrass State’s Senate race as a Democrat.

Romans is a thoroughbred racehorse trainer who won the 2011 Preakness Stakes. In Romans’ launch video, the candidate pledges to be “an independent Democrat” in the mold of former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.).

Democrat Amy McGrath, the party’s unsuccessful 2020 candidate, is also seeking the nomination. While McGrath raised loads of cash in her last campaign, many Democrats see her as an unserious candidate who sucked money away from tighter races.

This cycle’s Kentucky Senate race is an open seat due to GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell’s upcoming retirement.

Virginia. Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) will launch a bid today against Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), as we scooped Tuesday. Luria, first elected in 2018, lost to Kiggans in 2022.

Ad news. Liberal group Unrig Our Economy is airing a $220,000 ad buy targeting Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.). The spot is the latest in the group’s campaign slamming vulnerable Republicans for supporting the Medicaid cuts in the reconciliation bill.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

CLIPS