Fox News is giving Alabama U.S. Senator Katie Britt national credit for helping end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
After the Senate passed the bill to open the government, U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) called Britt “a rock star” playing a leading role in brokering the process of intense, historic negotiations.
In the report, Fox News detailed how Britt spent weeks working behind the scenes to rebuild trust between Senate Republicans and Democrats during the 43-day standoff.
The outlet reported that Britt helped piece together an old-school bipartisan coalition in the Senate to reopen the government after the shutdown had dragged on for more than six weeks.
Britt said her past experience in government guided the way to a successful outcome for the American people.
“I’m very grateful for those on the other side of the aisle that had the courage to step forward and say, you know, we’re not going to allow everyday Americans to suffer as a result of keeping this government closed,” Britt told Fox News.
“I do think what we saw was a lot of people that were listening to their political consultants instead of the actual constituency that they serve. Because clearly, I think a lot of people had lost sight of the fact that we were in this place because we hadn’t passed appropriations bills.”
Senator Britt explained that at least moving three spending bills could help get the government going again. Fox highlighted that strategy as the key to jump-starting a stalled Senate and giving both parties a concrete path to reopen the government.
“The question that I had for each of them, you know, why? This came out of committee in a bipartisan way, and it was clear, they wanted greater conversation around how we were planning on moving these things forward,” she said.
“Taking a cue from that is why I really leaned into conversations, both with people that I believed were gettable in finding a pathway forward on reopening the government and those who were not. You know, just saying, like, ‘Look, guys, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to work to fund these three bills. And if we do that, you know, here will be the ultimate result of it.’”
The CR that opened the federal government ensured full-year military funding, a massive priority for Alabama, while keeping critical operations at agencies funded and ensuring federal workers receive back pay.
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
