As the government shutdown stretches into its second week, Nevada lawmakers on both sides are growing more frustrated about the lack of progress on negotiations and are concerned about the impact on Nevadans. 

“The ripple effects of a shutdown are real and immediate,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) wrote in a statement to The Nevada Independent, citing as examples the lack of pay for air traffic controllers and the pause on federal loans for small businesses. 

The Federal Aviation Administration included Las Vegas on a list of multiple U.S. cities that did not have enough air traffic controllers working on Tuesday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that more controllers have been calling out sick during the shutdown, when they are expected to work without pay. 

The first missed paycheck for active-duty military troops, of which there are 13,000 in Nevada, will arrive on Oct. 15. Most other federal workers will experience their first missed paycheck on Oct. 28, if the government is still shut down then.

In Washington, groups of lawmakers — huddled over dinners, on phone calls, and in private meetings — have tried to brainstorm ways out of the standoff. But there is no clear solution in sight, a lack of progress that members of the two parties blame on each other.

“Republicans could open the government today if they wanted to,” Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) said at a health care event on Thursday. She emphasized they have majority control of the federal government.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has kept the House out of session, which Lee pointed to as a counterproductive move and proof of Johnson’s disinterest in ending the shutdown.

Republicans in turn have blamed Democrats, claiming the shutdown would never have arrived if Democrats had not been so stubborn on extending health care subsidies that are set to expire this year. Several federal agencies have posted overtly partisan messages on their websites blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) has been one of three non-Republican “yes” votes on continuing resolutions introduced by Republican senators throughout the last week, as an effort to prevent the shutdown. The Senate failed, in a 54-45 vote, to advance a stopgap funding bill for the seventh time Thursday, with Cortez Masto again voting for the Republican-sponsored bill. 

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) said during a press call Wednesday that only Cortez Masto could explain her votes. Rosen has voted against the GOP’s resolutions, she said, because “I believe that fighting for people's health care is one of the most important things I can do.”

Amodei has called on Democrats to end the shutdown. 

“It’s in the best interest of the entire country to turn the lights back on, and all it takes is a few more Senators to recognize the pain that’s been inflicted and do the right thing,” he wrote in his statement. 

On Day 9, a solution remains unclear

Lawmakers trying to resolve the shutdown have found themselves running up against the reality that the relationship between the two parties is badly broken.

“We’re in an environment where we need more than a handshake,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), who has engaged in talks with Republicans.

The frustration was evident this week as Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), on separate occasions, engaged in tense exchanges in the Capitol hallways with members of the opposing party.

President Donald Trump and Republicans say they will only negotiate on Democratic demands around health care benefits after they vote to reopen the government. They also say Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is beholden to the left wing of his party and only is staging the shutdown fight to stave off a primary challenge.

When a handshake deal is not enough

Conflicts over spending power were raging before the shutdown as the White House pushed to assert maximum power over congressionally approved budgets. The White House budget office had canceled scores of government contracts, including cutting out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.”

That enraged Democrats — and disturbed some Republicans who criticized it as executive overreach.

“I hate rescissions, to be honest with you, unless they’re congressionally approved,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).

Matt Glassman, a fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, said the president’s use of rescissions was “blowing up the underlying dynamic of the bargaining” because it inserts intense partisanship into a budget appropriations process that otherwise requires compromise, particularly in the Senate.

Then, as the government entered a shutdown, Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, laid out arguments that the president would have even more power to lay off workers and even cancel pay due to furloughed federal workers once the funding lapse is solved. Vought has also announced that the administration was withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators who have voted for the shutdown. Nevada is not one of the states with cancelled projects. 

On Capitol Hill, there has been some acknowledgment that these tactics make it harder to negotiate.

“I think with senators, carrots work better than sticks,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND).

One Democratic idea may win GOP support

Before they vote to reopen the government, Democrats’ main demand is that Congress take up an extension of tax credits for health plans offered on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Trump has sounded open to a deal, saying that he wants “great health care” for Americans.

What’s received less attention is that Democrats also want new safeguards in the law limiting the White House’s ability to claw back, or rescind, funding already approved by Congress. While final appropriations bills are still being worked out, Republicans have been open to the idea.

“When you end the shutdown and get back to regular order within the appropriations bills, there’s very clear language about how we feel about rescissions,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-ID), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In the meantime, the main sticking point for lawmakers this week remains the extension of the health care subsidies.

The shutdown could end “if we could just pass a bill to extend the subsidies for a year,” Lee said on Thursday. 

Rosen said Wednesday that health care was an issue “worth standing up for” and that she hoped Republicans would “hear us and invite us to come to the table, like we have always done.”