Susan Illston

Oct. 18 (UPI) — Senate Democrats and Republicans are not budging on their demands to temporarily fund the federal government and end the shutdown as key dates approach.

The shutdown is the federal government’s third-longest and entered its 18th day on Saturday after the Senate failed to approve a temporary funding measure for the 10th time on Thursday and adjourned for the weekend.

More votes are expected to be held next week, but if the Senate stalemate continues, active federal workers won’t receive their full paychecks on Friday for the first time during the current shutdown, according to The Hill.

Those federal workers who are still on the job also received only partial pay on Oct. 10, which affected an estimated 2 million employees and their families.

Federal workers are guaranteed back pay when the shutdown eventually ends and the government is funded, in accordance with a 2019 federal law.

While active federal workers could miss their first full paychecks on Friday, military personnel are slated to be paid a week later on Oct. 31.

President Donald Trump earlier announced his administration has located $8 billion in unused research-and-development allocations from the 2025 fiscal year that ended on Sept 30.

He used that money to pay 1.2 million military personnel on Wednesday, but several congressional lawmakers question the legality of doing so.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intends to hold a vote to pay military personnel and other “excepted” federal workers.

“We’re going to give [senators] a chance to pay the military next week,” Thune told media.

Senate staffers also are slated to be paid on Monday and House staffers on Oct. 31, but the funds are not available.

Another pressing issue is the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1.

A House-approved continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21 does not include an extension of ACA tax credits, which expire at the end of the year.

The 18-day shutdown will last at least into Monday and only has been surpassed by a 21-day shutdown from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, and a 35-day shutdown that started on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted until Jan. 25, 2019.

Senate Democrats mostly have refused to approve the continuing resolution and instead offered an alternative funding measure that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 and would include an extension of the ACA tax credits and Medicaid eligibility.

Senate Republicans mostly prefer to negotiate such things in the 2026 fiscal year budget, though.

Another pressing date is Nov. 21, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel weekends in the United States.

If the shutdown extends into the Thanksgiving weekend, a shortage of air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers would greatly affect air travel.

The president has cited the shutdown when laying off federal workers, but U.S. District of Northern California Judge Susan Illston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from continuing to lay off federal workers who are represented by two public sector unions.

On Friday, Illston said she might expand the injunction to include members of three more labor unions, Roll Call reported.

Former President Bill Clinton appointed Illston to the federal bench in 1995.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to halt firings of workers amid the shutdown, according to two labor unions that brought the lawsuit against the federal government.

The Trump administration on Friday announced that it has begun laying off 4,100 federal workers as the federal purse has run dry with Congress since Oct. 1, failing to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.

On Sept. 30, ahead of the shutdown and amid Trump administration threats to institute mass firings if the government shuttered, the American Federation of Government Employees, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the layoffs.

Then on Oct. 4, the union filed a motion for a temporary restraining order.

On Wednesday, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the unions, issuing the temporary restraining order they sought, stating that the reduction-in-force notices issued to the more than 4,000 federal employees were likely illegal, exceeded the Trump administration’s authority and were capricious.

In her order, the appointee of President Bill Clinton described Trump’s mass firings amid a government shutdown as “unprecedented.”

Illston outlined how some employees could not even find out if they had been fired because the notices were sent to government email accounts, which they may not have access to because of the shutdown.

Those who do receive the notices are then unable to prepare for their terminations because human resources staff have been furloughed, she said, adding that in one case at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human resources staff were brought back into the office to issue the layoff notices only to then be directed to lay themselves off.

She then said, citing a social media post from the president on the second day of the shutdown, saying he had a meeting with Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, to determine which of the many “Democrat Agencies” to cut that Trump intended to make the cut as retribution over the Democrats opposing the funding measure.

“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party,” Illston wrote. “But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing.”

Illston gave the administration two days to provide the court with more information on the issued notices.

“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, said in a statement.

“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy.”

As the order was issued, Vought said that he expects thousands of federal workers to be fired in the coming days.

“Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they have articulated as in the 4,000 number of people,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. “But that’s just a snapshot, and I think it’ll get much higher. And we’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout the shutdown.”

Democrats said they will only support a stopgap bill that extends and restores Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, arguing that failing to do so would raise healthcare costs for some 20 million Americans.

Republicans — who control the House, Senate and the presidency — are seeking a so-called clean funding bill that includes no changes. They argue that the Democrats are fighting to provide undocumented migrants with taxpayer-funded healthcare, even though federal law does not permit them to receive Medicaid or ACA premium tax credits.

The parties continue to trade blame for the shutdown as it extends for more than two weeks, with some 750,000 federal workers furloughed.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to halt firings of workers amid the shutdown, according to two labor unions that brought the lawsuit against the federal government.

The Trump administration on Friday announced that it has begun laying off 4,100 federal workers as the federal purse has run dry with Congress since Oct. 1, failing to pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open.

On Sept. 30, ahead of the shutdown and amid Trump administration threats to institute mass firings if the government shuttered, the American Federation of Government Employees, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the layoffs.

Then on Oct. 4, the union filed a motion for a temporary restraining order.

On Wednesday, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the unions, issuing the temporary restraining order they sought, stating that the reduction-in-force notices issued to the more than 4,000 federal employees were likely illegal, exceeded the Trump administration’s authority and were capricious.

In her scathing rebuke of the Trump administration, the appointee of President Bill Clinton described Trump’s mass firings amid a government shutdown as “unprecedented.”

In her order, she outlined how some employees could not even find out if they had been fired because the notices were sent to government email accounts, which they may not have access to because of the shutdown.

Those who do receive the notices are then unable to prepare for their terminations because human resources staff have been furloughed, she said, adding that in one case at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human resources staff were brought back into the office to issue the layoff notices only to then be directed to lay themselves off.

She then chastised the Trump administration for carrying out the layoffs to punish the Democratic Party, which it blames for the shutdown.

“But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing,” she said, pointing to a social media post from the president on the second day of the shutdown saying he had a meeting with Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, to determine which of the many “Democrat Agencies” to cut.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote in the Oct. 2 post, which was quoted in full in Illston’s order.

Illston gave the administration two days to provide the court with more information on the issued notices.

“This decision affirms that these threatened mass firings are likely illegal and blocks layoff notices from going out,” Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME, said in a statement.

“Federal workers have already faced enough uncertainty from the administration’s relentless attacks on the important jobs they do to keep us safe and healthy.”

As the order was issued, Vought said that he expects thousands of federal workers to be fired in the coming days.

“Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they have articulated as in the 4,000 number of people,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. “But that’s just a snapshot, and I think it’ll get much higher. And we’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout the shutdown.”

Democrats said they will only support a stopgap bill that extends and restores Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, arguing that failing to do so would raise healthcare costs for some 20 million Americans.

Republicans — who control the House, Senate and the presidency — are seeking a so-called clean funding bill that includes no changes. They argue that the Democrats are fighting to provide undocumented migrants with taxpayer-funded healthcare, even though federal law does not permit them to receive Medicaid or ACA premium tax credits.

The parties continue to trade blame for the shutdown as it extends for more than two weeks, with some 750,000 federal workers furloughed.