In the slow-motion ending of the longest Administration shutdown in the history of the United States, this Wednesday it was the turn of the House of Representatives to approve it. Its 435 members met in full for the first time since September 19 to vote on the proposal to reopen the Government’s financing tap approved on Monday in the Senate
There were 222 if it is (216 Republicans and six Democrats) by 209 noes (202 Democrats and 7 Republicans). The only thing left is Donald Trump’s signature – scheduled during a ceremony announced for 9:45 p.m. (Washington time) – to be able to end the shutdownwhich is what Washington calls the partial locking of public money that is a recurring threat that materializes when both parties do not agree on budgetary matters. This time it lasted 43 days and broke all records for lack of agreement on Capitol Hill.
With the presidential signature, normality will gradually return to dozens of closed federal agencies and closed or unattended monuments and national parks, as well as to the main airports in the United States, due to the effects of the shutdown in air traffic controllers and security employees, officials considered “essential” and, therefore, forced to work without pay. The rest, about 750,000, have been suspended from employment and salary during these weeks.
It is not clear when all these problems can be considered unstuck; especially, that of airports. Nor, how much will the 42 million beneficiaries of the food stamp system (SNAP) ultimately be affected. The Trump Administration has tried by all means not to pay the amounts corresponding to November, and last Friday the Supreme Court intervened to agree with the White House in that effort.
The agreement that reopens the tap of public money includes the forecast of when there may be a new crisis; the funding of the vouchers during the 2026 fiscal year and the commitment that the Trump Administration will reinstate fired officials during these 43 days. Also, that it will retroactively pay the salaries not received by those who kept their jobs and that it will not lay off any more federal employees in the next two and a half months.
Almost more important is what that pact does not include. Above all, in the case of the Democrats, who are once again facing an internal crisis just a week after the resounding electoral victories in New York, Virginia and New Jersey that had allowed them to overcome the previous one. a part of the health coverage included in the Obamacare program (a law named after the president who inspired it). They are subsidies approved during the pandemic, and their foreseeable end will skyrocket the price of insurance. Yes, they have agreed to vote on these subsidies soon, although it does not seem that this initiative will succeed on Capitol Hill.
The president of the Lower House, the speaker Mike Johnson has kept her in recess for 54 days to, with that unprecedented gesture, try to blame the Democrats for the effects of the Administration closure. The last thing the representatives did before receiving indefinite vacations was to approve the budget plan that later did not obtain the necessary support in the Senate, a qualified majority of 60 that did not arrive until Sunday, after 14 failed votes. So, the Democrats did not want to support the plan that would have kept the Administration open,
During that time, Johnson has also refused – everything indicates that due to a political calculation based on his unwavering loyalty to Trump – to allow Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva (Arizona) to be sworn in after winning a special election on September 22 to succeed her father, Raúl Grijalva, who died in January.
Grijalva’s vote
He finally achieved it this Wednesday afternoon. The first thing he did was sign a petition with his people to force a vote in Congress. If it goes ahead, which is also unlikely, it would force the White House to publish all the files that the Department of Justice has related to the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire pedophile who died in 2019 in a maximum security cell while awaiting trial. Johnson
The Democrats and a handful of Republicans who allow them to add the necessary 218 votes want to know the content of those papers that the Department of Justice promised for months would see the light of day until last July when Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement, signed by the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, in which they changed their mind and announced that they would no longer distribute them.
These are new emails from Epstein, released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, in which he repeatedly names Trump. The two were friends for 15 years, until their separation in 2004. That is, before the first trial against the financier and also before the real estate magnate and reality television star became president for the first time.
The White House’s sudden refusal to shed light on those files has fueled suspicions that they contain something that Trump does not want known. At the beginning of the summer, these maneuvers caused the most serious crisis among his followers in the MAGA world (acronym for the Trumpist slogan Make America Great Again). Conspiracy theories militants have suspected for years that these files contain a list of rich and famous people involved in Epstein’s crimes and that it is not made public to protect them. Also that the financier did not commit suicide, as the forensic report maintained.
Until the Trump Administration releases all that material, Congress has been obtaining papers from Epstein’s family in waves since August. The emails released this Tuesday correspond to the last shipment, from last week. Bondi has the complete dossier, as he has stated, on the table in his office.
Trump maintains that he knew nothing of his old friend’s crimes. This Wednesday he dismissed the new revelations as another manifestation of a “Democratic hoax” to divert attention from the end of the Administration shutdown that came after all.
