The House shutdown vote is now hours away. After a marathon overnight session, the House Rules Committee cleared the Senate-passed funding bill early on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, sending it to the full House for a late-afternoon vote that could end the longest government shutdown in American history.
The 42-day shutdown has furloughed federal workers, snarled air travel and left millions of Americans unsure about food assistance. The House has not been in session since mid-September, and lawmakers raced back to Washington through flight delays and bad weather to be in place for Wednesday's vote. Republican leaders believe the bill will pass with nearly all Republicans on board, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expects most Democrats to oppose it.
The Rules Committee hearing began on Tuesday evening and ran past 1 a.m. on Wednesday, with members clashing repeatedly over health care and food assistance. The panel voted to advance the measure on a party-line split, with Republicans in favour and Democrats against.
Democrats tried repeatedly to force votes on amendments, including one dealing with the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of this year. Every Democratic amendment failed. Jeffries made a surprise appearance before the panel to argue in person for his own amendment extending the subsidies for three years.
The hearing also exposed the raw nerves of a shutdown now in its seventh week. Democrats accused Republicans of taking a vacation while staying in their districts during the funding lapse, a charge that drew a sharp response from Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina. "I am sick and tired of hearing you all say we had an eight-week vacation," Foxx said. "I worked every day. I don't know about you. I don't want to hear another soul say that."
Getting lawmakers to Washington became a story of its own. With air travel disrupted by the shutdown itself and bad weather in parts of the country, some members found unconventional routes to the Capitol. First-term Representative Addison McDowell of North Carolina carpooled more than five hours with Foxx, a journey he later joked made him briefly one of the most powerful people in America, because the Rules process could not start until its chair arrived.
The shutdown began on October 1, when funding lapsed after Congress failed to agree on a spending bill. It has since become the longest in United States history, passing the previous record by roughly a week. Federal workers have gone without pay, and air traffic controller shortages have contributed to flight delays across the country.
The breakthrough came in the Senate late on Monday, when the chamber passed the funding package 60-40, with eight Democrats joining Republicans. The deal pairs a short-term continuing resolution with three full-year appropriations bills, and promises a vote in mid-December on extending the health care subsidies, a concession that helped win over enough Senate Democrats without writing the extension into the bill.
Food assistance has been one of the shutdown's most urgent fronts. About 42 million Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Supreme Court has extended its block on full SNAP payments through the end of Thursday, leaving states that advanced their own funds uncertain about reimbursement.
The House shutdown vote concerns a package with two distinct parts. The first is a continuing resolution funding most federal agencies at existing levels through January 30, buying time for negotiations on a longer-term budget. The second is full-year funding through September 30 for military construction and veterans' affairs, the Department of Agriculture and the legislative branch, including the Food and Drug Administration.
For federal workers, the bill reverses layoffs set in motion earlier in October and pays employees for the time they went without wages. Roughly 800,000 federal employees have been affected by the lapse.
What the bill does not do is equally important to the politics of the vote. It contains no extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which Democrats made their central demand throughout the shutdown fight. Experts have warned that premiums will rise sharply for tens of millions of people if the credits lapse at year's end, and the promised mid-December vote offers no guarantee of an extension.
Another flashpoint is a provision allowing senators to sue for up to $500,000 if their phone records were sought as part of an investigation into the president without them being notified, retroactive to 2022. The provision, added in the Senate, drew objections from Democrats and some Republicans alike. Presenting the package to the Rules Committee, Cole said the measure "will finally end this pointless shutdown".
Jeffries framed the Democratic case in stark terms when he testified for the three-year subsidy extension. "Tens of millions of working-class Americans are about to experience dramatically increased premiums," he said. "We respectfully urge our Republican colleagues to join us."
Ranking appropriations Democrat Rosa DeLauro, who testified against the bill, said it "does nothing to address the Republican health care crisis" and warned that it fails to guarantee states will be reimbursed for SNAP funds they advanced during the shutdown.
Republican leaders, by contrast, have presented the bill as the only realistic path out of the longest shutdown on record. People familiar with GOP leaders' conversations told Fox News Digital they believe it will pass with nearly all Republicans on board, and Trump has signalled his support for the deal. Jeffries, for his part, has said he expects House Democrats to oppose a package that leaves the subsidy fight unresolved.
Wednesday's vote is the moment the shutdown fight moves from negotiation to decision. A House passage would end a 42-day funding lapse that has tested federal workers, travellers and families relying on food assistance, and it would do so six days before the November 3 midterm elections.
The vote also sets the terms of the next fight. By funding most of the government only through January 30, the bill guarantees another funding deadline in the new year, and the promised December vote on health care subsidies means the issue that caused the shutdown will return to the floor within weeks.
For the roughly 42 million SNAP recipients and the hundreds of thousands of federal workers awaiting back pay, the practical stakes are immediate: a signed bill restarts paychecks and normal agency operations, while a failed vote would prolong the uncertainty into a seventh week and beyond.
The House is expected to vote late on Wednesday afternoon. If it passes, the bill goes to Trump for his signature, and agencies can begin reopening, with furloughed workers returning and back pay processed. If it fails, Republican leaders would have to regroup, and the shutdown would continue with no agreed path out.
Two other clocks are running alongside the vote. The Supreme Court's block on full SNAP payments runs through the end of Thursday, and the Federal Reserve announces its interest-rate decision at 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, with markets widely expecting rates to stay on hold.
Related coverage: Supreme Court SNAP payments block extended as shutdown deal heads to House vote and Social Security payments this week: who gets paid Oct 28 and 30.
The full House is set to vote late on Wednesday afternoon, October 28, 2026, after the Rules Committee advanced the Senate funding bill early Wednesday morning.
It funds most of the government through January 30, gives full-year funding to military construction, veterans' affairs, agriculture and the legislative branch, reverses recent layoffs and pays furloughed federal workers back pay.
No. It does not extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expiring at the end of the year, but it promises a Senate vote on an extension in mid-December.
The Supreme Court has extended its block on full SNAP payments through the end of Thursday. States that advanced funds during the shutdown are still seeking assurance they will be reimbursed.
The shutdown would continue with no agreed exit, and Republican leaders would need a new plan to reopen the government before the November 3 midterms.
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