Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) voted in support of ending the longest-ever government shutdown because the cost had grown too high for struggling people, they told The Nevada Independent in interviews. 

The pair were among the small group of moderate Democrats who provided enough votes to end the shutdown this week, angering members of their party who wanted senators to hold out until they reached an agreement to extend expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits. But as lawmakers voted to advance the deal late Monday, the Nevada senators stood behind their decision.

Cortez Masto voted against the shutdown from the beginning and continued to do so more than a dozen times, while Rosen was one of a handful of senators who flipped and supported a GOP-backed government funding bill after benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were interrupted.

“Everyone in America is going to fall off some kind of cliff,” Rosen told The Indy in an interview Monday amid Senate floor votes. “They can’t afford their health insurance. But Donald Trump, this administration — cruelty is a feature, not a bug. So he decides to take babies and children, 42 million Americans on SNAP — an overwhelming majority, children, seniors, disabled, and veterans — and take food out of their mouths, even at midnight, even when they say, ‘You have to pay,’ he’s trying to pull it back. He wants to see children starve.”

In Nevada, where the economy depends on tourism, the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to cut air travel (leading to flight cancellations at Harry Reid International Airport) also played a role.

“When it comes to our travel and tourism industry in Nevada, he wants those airports to close,” Rosen said. “As people begin to think about, well, for Las Vegas, we have F1 coming, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Our airport closes, that means our Strip goes down, less shifts. The economic impact is a mess.”

American Airlines released a statement thanking the Nevada senators for their leadership on Monday. 

Asked if she had talked to the junior senator about changing her vote, Cortez Masto told The Nevada Independent that Rosen was part of the same negotiations she was. 

Both senators cited the thousands of Nevadans who have been going without pay during the shutdown. Rosen said she made her decision after her most recent calls with federal workers. 

“Quite a few of them said, essentially, this to me: ‘I missed a couple of paychecks, going to miss a third, I believe in what you’re doing for health care. I’m going to lose my car, I’m going to get evicted, I’ve run up my credit cards, it’ll take years to repair my credit, and I have nowhere to go,’” she said. “This bill funds SNAP, brings everybody back, pays them back, makes sure that they can’t be furloughed again and gives us full control of the floor for one day to put up the date of our choosing a bill that we write to protect every damn American’s health care. And that was something we did not have before.”

Senate Republican leadership has agreed to a vote on the ACA subsidies in December, but made no promises about extending them. 

“We were never going to get a guarantee,” Cortez Masto told The Nevada Independent. “That was not going to happen. What we were going to get, though, was a vote, and we did get that.”

Other Democrats who backed the deal told reporters on Monday that a compromise with Republicans could include income limits for the ACA tax credits. Pressed on whether she thought Republicans would actually vote to extend them, Cortez Masto said they would pay a political price if they did not. 

“If they want to help Americans across the country, including in their states, afford health care through the ACA markets, then they’re going to work with us in December to pass these premium tax subsidies,” Cortez Masto said. “If they don’t, then they own it.”

Senators may face another showdown in the new year. The deal senators reached only funds the government through the end of January.

“We’re only in the first inning of this fight,” Rosen said. “Whether it’s legislation, whether it’s in the courts, whether it’s in the streets, we’re going to make sure we take it to the Republicans. We’re going to hold them accountable. And this bill only goes ’til Jan. 30, so if they don’t do what they say they’re going to do, we can hold their feet to the fire. But every day and at every arena, we have to march toward next November to win and show people who they are.”

The broad range of critics of the deal included likely presidential candidate California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), centrist Democratic think tank Third Way and Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV). She told The Nevada Independent that the weeks of pain caused by the shutdown would be “for nothing” before pointing out on social media that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had declined to promise a vote on ACA subsidies in the House. 

Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) did not directly say whether she supported the deal to end the shutdown. Like her Democratic colleagues, she aimed her fire across the aisle. 

“As families across Southern Nevada log in to purchase their health care for next year, they’ll see that prices have skyrocketed due to Washington Republicans’ refusal to save the ACA tax credit,” she wrote in a statement to The Nevada Independent. “When they are choosing to take food out of the mouths of hungry families to make a political point, you know you’re not working with a rational, good faith actor. There’s no level they won’t stoop to, and it’s not just irresponsible, it’s plain evil.”