AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It is Day 10 of the government shutdown. And on Capitol Hill, there have been almost no signs of progress. The Senate has voted seven times on the same two short-term funding measures, and seven times they failed to end the shutdown. And now, senators say they aren't even formally negotiating. So what are they doing? NPR congressional reporter Sam Gringlas spends some time with senators asking just that.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Is not agreed to.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Not agreed to.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Is not agreed to.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: This motion is not agreed to.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: Day after day, lawmakers have been filing into the Senate chamber to vote on the same two proposals to reopen the government - one backed by mostly Republicans, the other by Democrats. The spending bills need 60 votes to advance, which means bipartisan support is the only way forward.
JOHN FETTERMAN: People really are just kind of dug in and then everything is hyper-politicized.
GRINGLAS: Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has been 1 of 2 Democrats voting with Republicans on a bill to fund the government for a few more weeks. Most Democrats are holding out for a deal to renew expiring health insurance subsidies. Sitting on a bench outside the chamber, Fetterman says the endless loop of votes is not what he envisioned serving in the Senate would be like.
FETTERMAN: I think people should realize that there's no glamor.
GRINGLAS: President James Buchanan described the U.S. Senate as the world's greatest deliberative body. Ask senators this week if they think that's true, and you get a lot of responses like this from Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: I wish we did more deliberating.
GRINGLAS: Even so, he says voting no on the Republican-backed bill in order to preserve the subsidies is exactly what his constituents sent him to Washington to do. Warnock, a Baptist pastor, says maybe his colleagues across the aisle will come around.
WARNOCK: It's never too late to come to Jesus.
GRINGLAS: At the onset of this shutdown, Republicans promised cracks in the Democratic Caucus. Democrats said they would soon peel off Republicans. Neither has happened. Here's Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana.
JOHN KENNEDY: The further we go, the deeper we get dug in. That's the way I see it.
GRINGLAS: And that can make it seem a little like "Groundhog Day." Republican Senator Thom Tillis walked away from a press gaggle muttering, my God, make it stop. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine says he doesn't believe this is what the founders intended.
ANGUS KING: If you think about it, we've only really passed, I think, two or three bills this year, and that's not what this institution was designed to do.
GRINGLAS: But some lawmakers are trying to keep that spirit of give and take alive. A bipartisan group of senators traded ideas over Thai food earlier this week, though Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was tight-lipped about the details.
LISA MURKOWSKI: I don't talk about what happens at mealtimes.
GRINGLAS: Why is it important to keep having informal gatherings like that at this time?
MURKOWSKI: Talking. Talking, absolutely. If you don't have communication, nothing changes, right?
GRINGLAS: Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma also attended but skipped the Thai food.
MARKWAYNE MULLIN: I like cheeseburgers. I like hot dogs. I like pop tarts. I like cookies.
GRINGLAS: Mullin says the group didn't negotiate the end of a shutdown. They talked about what should happen after.
MULLIN: 'Cause we trust each other, and we can have candid conversations. And they've been, I think, pretty productive.
GRINGLAS: There have been glimmers of a potential path forward, like a possible vote after reopening the government to extend the subsidies. That's why Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia says the repetitive votes are not a waste.
TIM KAINE: Votes tend to be the reason that everybody comes to the floor and then spends time talking to try to find a solution. We haven't found a solution yet, but we're going to keep at it.
GRINGLAS: But on Friday, the senators went home for the weekend with no deal and the shutdown now stretching into another week.
Sam Gringlas, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARISA ANDERSON'S "HESITATION THEME AND VARIATION BLUES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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