After more than 40 days, the longest government shutdown in history may soon end.

Seven Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans to advance a deal that would fund the government through the end of January.

The deal funds Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for a year, pays furloughed federal workers and reinstates federal workers the Trump administration tried to fire during the shutdown. It also includes a promise to vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies later this year. But it stops short at addressing that issue, which provoked the shutdown in the first place.

“There was no guarantee that waiting would get us a better result, but there was a guarantee that waiting would impose suffering on more everyday people,” said Tim Kaine, Democratic Senator from Virginia, who voted for the deal.

Many of Kaine’s Democratic colleagues disagree. Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it a “terrible mistake.”

“I will not support a deal that does nothing to make health care more affordable,” Warren said in a statement. “The fight to lower costs is a righteous fight, and we must not give it up.”

Sen. Kaine, for his part, believes that Republicans will honor their promise to bring a Democratic health care proposal to a floor vote.

“I’m confident there will be a vote,” said Kaine. “My gut tells me, based on the conversations I’ve had with Republicans, that many of them really want to fix this, and they know if they don’t, the midterm elections will make last week’s 2025 elections look like a good night for them.”

5 questions with Sen. Tim Kaine

Why did you vote against the wishes of your party leaders? 

“I was with my party leaders for about 40 days. But when the dust settled on the Virginia elections last week, which were really occupying my attention, I stepped back and said, ‘Okay, where are we right now?’

“The Republicans had offered no path to fixing the ACA tax credits and said they wouldn’t even entertain it until the government was open. And SNAP beneficiaries — 45 million in the United States, 800,000 in Virginia — were starting to lose benefits. So I engaged with the group at that time who was trying to find a deal.

“We got a deal that does three things. Number one, it fully funds SNAP benefits in a robust way for a year, along with some other important priorities, like the [Department of Veterans Affairs], reversing some of the damage that the Republicans did to SNAP in the reconciliation bill last summer. It gives us a path to a fix of the ACA tax credits. Not a guarantee, but we didn’t have a path. And now we do have a path, and we’ll have a debate and vote on the floor of the Senate within a month.

“Then my piece of the negotiation was to get the federal worker protections, which is not only returning the furloughed employees and the recently fired employees and them getting back pay, but I also got the White House — and this was the last element that fell into place — I got them to agree to no mass layoffs, no [reductions in force] going forward. And that really takes a lot of anxiety away from the 2 million people who work for the federal government, about 300,000 of whom are in Virginia.”

Why don’t you think Democrats should keep holding out for a better deal, even though Democrats just won big in national elections?

“As of last week, people were blaming the president more than they were blaming anybody else, and rightfully so. He was the one who refused to engage.

“But I’ve been doing this for a while, and I realize these polls can change when SNAP beneficiaries, 45 million strong — about twice as many people as are getting the ACA health insurance — when they start losing benefits. Then folks start blaming everybody.

“When the air traffic control system is so chaotic that you can’t visit your family for Thanksgiving or your planes and trips are canceled, or, God forbid, some kind of an air accident happens, people start to blame everybody.

“I became convinced that the Republican red line, ‘we won’t talk about health insurance until the government reopens,’ was not fake. One of the things you do in negotiation, you just don’t bang your head endlessly against the red line. You try to find big gains in places that aren’t behind red lines. And that’s what we were able to do.

“We’ve got a fighting chance of winning this health care vote. Dems have got the high ground on it now. People know we’re fighting for them. We’re going to continue to do it. And Republicans are going to have to make a tough choice about whether they’ll listen to their constituents and solve that health care affordability problem more or ignore them.”

Are you confident that Republicans negotiated in good faith and that there will be a health care vote?

“I’m confident that there will be the vote. It’s not one with a guaranteed outcome. My gut tells me, based on the conversations I’ve had with Republicans, that many of them really want to fix this. And they know if they don’t, the midterm elections will make last week’s 2025 elections look like a good night for them.”

Are you confident President Trump will sign this bill if it goes through?

“Yes, I’m confident of that. Again, the White House is very aware that the reconciliation bill they did last summer is jacking up people’s health care costs, and they’re getting blamed for that. So they have a motive to fix it. If we fight really, really hard for people’s health care, I think we’ve got a great chance.”

When could the government reopen?

“My sense is the Senate will finish this up later today or tomorrow, and then the House hopefully will come back ASAP and get this bill to the president’s desk.”

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James Perkins Mastromarino produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Perkins Mastromarino also produced it for the web.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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