Amelia Schafer
ICT
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended late Wednesday night when President Donald Trump stamped his seal of approval on the continuing resolution to fund the remainder of 2025’s financial budget. While that action officially ended the shutdown, it’ll be several days before services return to normal for tribes and federal employees receive their paychecks.
Additionally, the government could shut down again if a 2026 budget isn’t agreed upon by Jan. 30, 2026.
Throughout the final week of the 43-day shutdown, Senate Republicans and Democrats finally worked together to come to an agreement to later vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. While it’s not guaranteed these subsidies will be protected when the Senate votes on the fiscal year 2026 budget in January, it was enough for seven Senate Democrats to switch their votes and help pass the continuing resolution.
One of those senators, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, had received letters from tribal organizations asking her to continue to vote to end the shutdown. One of those organizations, the Coalition of Large Tribes, which advocates on behalf of 52 land-based tribes in the United States, said it wrote to Cortez Masto to thank her for looking out for Indian Country in her decision.
OJ Semans, Sicangu Lakota and the coalition’s executive director, said he received a letter back from Cortez Masto thanking him for educating her about the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on tribes.
“That was our goal,” Seamans said. “We wanted the (continuing resolution) passed just to feed the people.”
But it could be a while before things return to normal, said Holly Cook Macarro, Red Lake Ojibwe and a tribal advocate and political strategist. Cook Macarro is also a Democratic pundit.
“Some of that (reopening) is going to take time, in terms of getting things moving and the flow of funds back into the pipeline, for instance, with (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program),” Cook Macarro said. “We will see that play out as everybody digs into both the numbers and policy writers that are in it (the continuing resolution).”
SNAP wasn’t the only program with lapsed funding during the lengthy shutdown. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has yet to have its funding reinstated – an issue concerning tribes like the Mi’kmaq Nation in Aroostook County, Maine.
The energy assistance program provides supplemental funding for low-income families to use toward heating or cooling their homes. Families can use the money to purchase propane, oil, kerosene or other heating materials. With a temporary loss of SNAP and LIHEAP in November and no clear pathway forward, many Native families will likely be forced to choose between putting food on the table or heating their homes as winter approaches.
Kandi Sock, Mi’kmaq’s community services director, said she’s seen some families’ heating bills climb as high as $10,000 in the winter.
“They’re getting down to those choices,” she said. “Do I pay my utility bill? Do I pay my electric bill? Or do I put food on the table?”
The state of Maine, home to four tribes, has implemented a moratorium on electricity starting Nov. 15 – something she said she hopes will give families a little more leeway.
“But it’s going to have to be paid at some point later on, and I’ve seen a lot of families run into big problems with that,” she said.
Federal employees who were furloughed received a return-to-work notice early Thursday morning as the government worked to return to normal operations. It takes roughly half a day for the government to shut down, and reopening may take a little longer than that due to the extent of this year’s shutdown.
Many tribes saw this coming in late September and took steps to prepare, but what they couldn’t have predicted was the loss of SNAP, said Semans.
Tribal councils and various states worked to guarantee funding with no promise the United States would pay them back. The Cherokee Nation in northeast Oklahoma forked over $11 million to feed its 60,000 tribal members who use SNAP with no promise or hope that the federal government would repay the tribe.
Other tribes, those with buffalo ranches and farmland, were able to provide food for tribal members. One of those tribes, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in central South Dakota, said it was incredibly relieved to hear the shutdown was finally over.
Federal workers, like Lower Brule Chairman Boyd Gourneau’s son, are still awaiting payment for the work completed during the shutdown. Many federal employees, the Transportation Security Officers, were deemed essential and continued to work without pay during the shutdown.
Federal employees, Gourneau said, couldn’t even accept free gifts like bison meat offered to them in appreciation for their work.
“For them to not be able to receive buffalo meat or any kind of gifts is inhumane,” he said. “It’s sad that the administration thinks so little of people in general.”
Federal employees will likely receive their paychecks on Monday or Tuesday. However, another shutdown could be on the horizon in 2026.
Semans and other leaders say they are concerned the federal government will be in the same position in January with no guaranteed movement on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Senate Democrats had sought and for which they had withheld their votes during the shutdown.
“I pushed senators to come up with a (continuing resolution), and that was mainly because I knew how many tribal families would go without food on the table if we didn’t have one,” Semans said. “Now we have to look at if it happens again, it could be longer, and so we need to work at ensuring (support). Even though it worked this time, we don’t know if it will work next time.”
The continuing resolution passed on Thursday included items that could be concerning for Indian Country, Cook Macarro said. One provision includes a ban on hemp-derived products, which many tribes produce.
“I imagine we’re going to have a fight on our hands with the administration, given how quickly they jumped on that as being a priority,” Cook Macarro said. “I imagine we may see that end up in the courts again, like many of these, many of these policy issues.”
Cook Macarro said she’s also working to read through the bill and identify other issues that could affect Indian Country.
Holly Cook Macarro serves on the board of IndiJ Public Media, parent company of ICT.