NC politicians react as deal to end government shutdown moves forward

North Carolina politicians are beginning to weigh in on a deal to end the federal government shutdown, which won tentative approval in the U.S. Senate Sunday with a final vote expected soon. 

Eight Democrats in the Senate voted with every Republican to approve the deal that would begin paying federal employees again, head off flight cancellations and pay for the food stamps program known as SNAP until at least next September.

The deal does nothing about subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums, which Democrats had previously said was what was driving them to reject deals to end the shutdown. The ACA subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year. When they do, people who buy health insurance through the individual marketplace — including about 1 million North Carolinians — will see their premiums rise by thousands of dollars per year. For some, it will be thousands of dollars per month. Most Democrats want to extend the subsidies; most Republicans don’t.

Once the deal passes the Senate, it’ll head to the U.S. House of Representatives. The House has a slim Republican majority, so any vote to approve it would need near-unanimous Republican support, or else a few Democrats willing to cross party lines like some of their Senate colleagues did.

WRAL reached out to all 14 members of North Carolina's U.S. House delegation to ask them how they plan to vote, and why. 

A spokesperson for Republican U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, who represents northwestern parts of the state, indicated she’ll vote however House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) asks GOP members to. Foxx is a Johnson lieutenant, serving as chairwoman of the House Rules Committee. “Chairwoman Foxx is in alignment with the Speaker,” a spokesperson for Foxx told WRAL.

Johnson declined to answer questions Monday morning from reporters in Washington, according to national news reports. But he has called on House members to return to Washington quickly, indicating a vote could happen as soon as this week.

On the other side of the aisle, Raleigh Democratic U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross said what Senate Democrats agreed to wasn’t worth a deal that did nothing to address the ACA subsidies. “The Senate bill is a bad deal for North Carolina,” she wrote in a statement. “It is a betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of NC families on the verge of losing their healthcare.”

Ross further explained her views in an interview Monday: "We're looking at huge increases in premiums, deductibles and copays," she said. "This particularly hits people who are over the age of 50, who have been working their whole lives, paying their taxes and now are just having absolute sticker shock for basic health care. And the Republicans have rejected this at every turn."

She said that even though the deal would return food stamp funding, it'll be at lower levels for the foreseeable future since Trump and congressional Republicans have already cut that funding as well. Having already lost that battle this summer, as part of negotiations over the spending plan Trump called his "One Big Beautiful Bill," Ross wishes Senate Democrats had kept up the shutdown fight to get a win on health care policy. "I just think we need to stick up for our people and not be afraid of Donald Trump's tactics and his lies," Ross said.

But the bill isn't law yet, and for the plan to pass the House, it could require bipartisan support. Republicans might find some of that in North Carolina.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who represents a competitive northeastern North Carolina district, said he’s reviewing the deal reached in the Senate before a vote in the House. “I am focused on ending the government shutdown responsibly and addressing the high cost of living families are facing,” he said in a statement. “The shutdown has made life harder for many families in eastern North Carolina and rural America, where resources are already limited.”

Davis is one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress, sometimes breaking party ranks to side with Republicans on key votes. More liberal Democrats saw little to like in the deal, including California Ro Khanna, who was in Durham Monday for a speech at Duke University and spoke with WRAL beforehand.

Khanna attracted national attention for calling for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to lose his job in party leadership.

"It's just so frustrating," Khanna said. "I mean, there are people whose insurance is going to go up $2,000 a month. And if the Democrats can't stand up against hikes in health care premiums, I don't know what we can stand up for. And that's why I just think we need new leadership."

Khanna said he doesn't discount the return of funding for food stamps — “In my district in Silicon Valley, which is the wealthiest county in the country, we still had people going to food banks because of the SNAP cuts,” he said — but that he thinks Senate Democrats could've won better terms if they had kept holding out for more.

"That didn't mean that to get those SNAP benefits, we say to 20 million Americans, 'You're no longer going to have health care because you can't afford your health insurance,'" he said. "Someone came up to me in the airport. ... He showed me the cost of his father's health insurance. Father's a taxi driver in Arizona. Was $44 a month, and it's going up to $2,000 a month. His father has cancer. The deductible is going up from $600 to $6000. How is he supposed to deal with this? Those are the people we've abandoned."

US Senate impact

Both of the state's U.S. senators, Republicans Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, voted in favor of the deal to end the shutdown.

Former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who is running to replace Tillis in the Senate next year since Tillis isn't seeking reelection, issued a statement Monday indicating that he would've opposed the deal if he had been in office. The vote in the Senate passed 60-40, the bare minimum amount of support required to break Democrats' filibuster.

"Working families are struggling and any deal that lets health care costs continue to skyrocket is unacceptable," Cooper wrote.

WRAL spoke with Cooper on Friday, during a campaign stop at a Wilson County farm, and asked about his stance on the shutdown. He said both parties shared blame, and that it was proof that "Washington is broken."

A spokesperson for Michael Whatley, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, didn't respond to a request for comment. 

Others weigh in 

Some members of the state’s congressional delegation who didn’t respond to WRAL have posted statements on social media this week. 

• U.S. Rep. Valerie Foushee, a Democrat whose district includes Durham and Orange counties and parts of western Wake, appeared to oppose the deal over health care concerns. “Given that Speaker Johnson refuses to promise a vote on lowering healthcare costs, a deal that excludes the ACA tax credits puts the healthcare of over 25,000 people in my district at risk,” Foushee said in a social media post on Monday. I'm ready to find a solution to address the healthcare crisis and open the government—but this deal doesn't do that.”

• U.S. Rep. Mark Harris, a Republican who represents a district east of Charlotte, blamed Democrats for the political gridlock. “Democrats shut down the government and are receiving the SAME DEAL that was offered to them on September 30th,” he said on social media Monday. “Millions of Americans have suffered, and paychecks have been delayed—all for political theater. They never cared about you. Only their radical agenda.”

• U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican who represents an eastern North Carolina congressional district, also blamed Democrats on social media on Sunday: “Flight cancellations and delays are hitting airports, SNAP benefits have been impacted, and over a million federal workers are still without pay,” he said. “The American people are hurting because of the Democrat-forced government shutdown. This nonsense needs to stop.”