While Election Day may headline the week, the Senate is back as talks likely continue on ending a partial government shutdown that's on track to set a new record Tuesday night, eclipsing the 35-day mark set during President Donald Trump's first term. While the House continues to not be in session, Republicans are publicly prognosticating that Democrats may relent on making a deal to pass a continuing resolution later this week that would reopen the government after the polls close in states including New Jersey and Virginia, which both have governor's races on the ballot. "The Democrats will wait until after Election Day, because they think the shutdown is good for energizing the crazies in their party, but I think it'll be either late this week or early next week," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on the Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures" program. The momentum on Capitol Hill last week did appear to be toward an agreement. Senators left town before Trump entered the discussion late Thursday by calling for Senate Republicans to use the "nuclear option" to effectively change Senate rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold, known as the filibuster, and reopen the government with a simple majority vote. The president expanded on his view during an interview that aired Sunday on the CBS News program "60 Minutes." "I think we should do the nuclear option," Trump said during an interview in which he was also asked about literal nuclear weapons. "This is a totally different nuclear, by the way. It's called ending the filibuster." Trump acknowledged that Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and other GOP senators have opposed the rules changes, but added, "The Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want. We're not going to lose power." Still, the level of opposition among members of the president's party suggests that was not a real path to end the lapse in appropriations. The shutdown has now extended past the start of open enrollment for the health insurance plans under the 2010 health care law that are seeing huge premium increases because of the end of expanded tax credits. Democrats have opposed stopgap funding to date because they wanted an agreement to avoid those higher premiums, which take effect in January. Democrats have already begun to take the premium price hikes to the campaign trail. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched digital ads in a variety of battleground states, including local news homepage ad takeovers, ahead of the open enrollment period. "Democrats are going on offense online and in battleground states to make sure that voters know that Republican Senate candidates are jacking up health care prices and making access to care unaffordable," DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement. Thune, meanwhile, set up another test vote on the government funding measure for as early as Tuesday. Multiple judicial nomination votes are also expected this week. There is also the potential for debate and a vote on a war powers resolution this week designed to curb U.S. hostilities in Venezuela without congressional approval. This comes after a Trump administration briefing last week (to which only Republicans were invited) on the U.S. government's military action against alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking boats. “It makes no sense to give a briefing to Republicans only. This is exactly why Congress needs to be brought in to any decision about use of force, and I hope we'll have more support for the war powers resolution when we take it up,” Sen. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., said last week. Schiff is among the leaders of the war powers measure, alongside lead sponsor Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Mark Satter contributed to this report.
