The new House Democratic majority voted Thursday to end the partial government shutdown but brought Congress no closer to resolving the impasse over President Donald Trump's demand to pay for a border wall.
The president and Senate Republicans oppose the Democrats' plan, and the next effort to reopen the closed agencies will come when leaders of both parties meet with Trump at the White House Friday morning, Bloomberg said.
Republican Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a close confidant of Trump and chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, predicted that the shutdown would last for months.
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"The impasse is real and it is deep," Meadows said in an interview.
The House votes came hours after the opening of the 116th Congress and the election of Nancy Pelosi in a triumphant return as House speaker, the only woman to serve in the position. She first served as speaker from 2007 to 2011.
The House voted 239-192 to pass the first government spending bill, H.J. Res. 1, which would reopen the Department of Homeland Security through February 8 to allow time for continued talks on the border wall. The chamber then passed a second measure, H.R. 21, which would open the other eight shuttered cabinet departments through September, on a 241-190 vote.
Federal workers are bearing the brunt of the shutdown's effects. More than 450,000 "essential" employees are working without pay, including law enforcement, border patrol agents and airport screeners. These workers received paychecks at the end of December but will miss their next checks on January 11 unless the agencies reopen. That could create a deadline for the talks next week.
