If Republicans want to quickly bring the government shutdown to an end, they will need to get one particularly formidable Senate Democrat on board.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has emerged as a central player in the bipartisan back-channeling that has ramped up this week as congressional leaders and President Donald Trump remain locked in a bitter stalemate.
Shaheen brings key credentials to the negotiating table. She’s an original proponent of the enhanced Obamacare tax credits whose expiration has emerged as a key flashpoint in the shutdown debate. She’s a veteran appropriator who has long despised government shutdowns. And she’s set to retire next year after 18 years in the Senate, insulating her from some of the political pressures her colleagues are feeling.
Earlier this year, Shaheen was one of the 10 Democrats who helped advance a GOP-written stopgap to avoid a March shutdown — and one of two members of the caucus who ultimately voted for it. This time around, she’s holding out as she works to forge some sort of consensus that could reopen the government while putting Congress on a path to extend the tax credits past the end of the year.
“I’ve been in conversations with a number of colleagues on both sides of the aisle,” Shaheen told reporters this week after the bipartisan Senate talks spilled into the open, adding that the insurance subsidies are “one of the areas that we ought to be able to find agreement on.”
While Shaheen has an independent streak, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other party leaders are aware of her outreach, fellow Democrats say, and in some cases she has asked her colleagues to try to keep lines of communication open.
“She’s doing a good job,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has kept in close touch with Shaheen. “There’s a couple of times where she’s said, ‘Hey, can you do this?’ to move the ball, ‘This person it might be better for you to talk to.’”
Shaheen, whose office declined to comment, has been careful not to delve into the nitty-gritty of her discussions. But she is hardly keeping her efforts a secret. She has done a round of media appearances this week — including on Fox News — to stress that a deal could be in reach if congressional leaders come together.
Lending that claim credibility is her long involvement in other bipartisan negotiations. That includes a Senate “gang” that helped bring an end to a brief shutdown in early 2018. She was also involved in bipartisan talks during former President Joe Biden’s administration, including a 2021 infrastructure deal.
More recently, she’s built close relationships with Republicans as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, making common cause in defense of NATO and against Russian President Vladimir Putin — who has put her on a blacklist of Americans created in response to sanction efforts. She recently helped advance Mike Waltz’s U.N. ambassador nomination in exchange for a foreign aid deal.
Top Republican leaders now see her among the handful of Democrats who they believe want to find a quick way out of the shutdown stalemate. Ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown, Shaheen declined for days to say how she would vote on a last-ditch attempt to pass a House-approved stopgap bill — the only off-ramp then available. Before and immediately after the Tuesday vote, she was spotted talking with several Republican senators, including Majority Leader John Thune.
“I think she’s one of many, as you know, on her side who tends to be kind of more in the reasonable caucus,” Thune said in an interview. “I think she’s looking for a path forward.”
Shaheen has been careful not to box herself or her colleagues in as they try to figure out an agreement about how to get out of the shutdown. And she’s opened the door to clamping down on the credits in order to win GOP support for extending them.
While she hasn’t publicly locked herself into any specific proposal, she noted recently that nearly everyone who is getting help through the subsidies to pay for their health insurance makes less than $200,000 a year — an income figure that has also been raised by House moderates. Republicans are certain to press for an income cap as part of any agreement on an extension.
GOP senators say the health insurance subsidies are not her only concern. She is also looking at how to get full-year appropriations bills moving. (The funding bill she helps oversee as a subcommittee ranking member, for the Department of Agriculture, is part of a three-bill package that has effectively been stuck because of the shutdown fight.)
A person who has spoken with Shaheen who was granted anonymity to speak freely about her thinking said the senator is aware that Democrats are operating from a structural disadvantage since Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. The person added that while she is pushing for the best possible outcome and supports larger Democratic aims, she’s also being realistic about what is achievable in the negotiations.
Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who is part of the group of Republicans talking to Shaheen, called her a “good partner” in the effort to find an end to the shutdown.
“She’s been kind of a good purveyor of the message,” Rounds said. “I mean, she gets the fact that we’re not going to do anything until we get out of the shutdown. So she’s trying to figure out a way to convince more of her team that we need to get this shutdown behind us and then we can get back to regular order.”
