Senator Shelley Moore Capito expressed relief that the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history ended last week, and she would like to avoid another shutdown when a continuing resolution ends Jan. 30.
“It’s a sigh of relief. I bear the scars here, and I think a lot of people do — and I hope that we don’t go down this path again,” Capito, R-W.Va., said in a briefing Thursday with West Virginia reporters.
“It was totally useless, a disservice to West Virginians, people with services, federal workers — I mean, the list goes on and on. Very disruptive. And in the end, we ended up pretty much where we started out.”
The federal shutdown finally came to an end with a vote on Nov. 11.
The shutdown occurred after Congress could not pass a budget by the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1.
Congressional Republicans had called for a continuing resolution to provide stopgap funding for a few weeks.
Democrats held out for weeks for a reversal of changes to Medicaid from the Big Beautiful Bill, an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and greater congressional leverage on executive branch financial decisions.
Pain grew in several areas as time went on. The Trump administration declined to use emergency contingent funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nation’s air transportation system also began to be disrupted. Federal workers went without paychecks.
In the end, eight Senate Democrat caucus members joined with Republicans for enough votes to get past the filibuster and end the shutdown.
The continuing resolution that wound up passing expires now in just a little more than two months.
Capito today said she favors bundling several appropriations bills and bringing them to the floor to ensure their passage before the deadline hits. This would be in addition to three appropriations bills that already have passed.
“I think that we will be doing that hopefully as we return after the Thanksgiving holiday. And I think we need to get that done before the end of the year, quite honestly,” Capito said.
“And if we do that — if we pass those five bills and couple them with the three that were passed — that’s 90% of the government that’s funded, and that will ease the pressure of the January 30 expiration date.”
She concluded, “I don’t want to go down this path again. We need to appropriate every year, and hopefully that’s what we’ll do. We need to get cooperation to do it, but hopefully we’ll get those bills over the finish line.”