Rayann Martin, a 10-year-old displaced from the village of Kipnuk by ex-Typhoon Halong, left, talks with new classmate Lilly Loewen, 10, right, as they work in the Yup’ik language at College Gate Elementary, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
AP- Rayann Martin sat in a classroom hundreds of miles from her devastated Alaska Native village and held up 10 fingers when the teacher asked the pupils how old they were.
“Ten — how do you say 10 in Yup’ik?” the teacher asked.
“Qula!” the students answered in unison.
Martin and her family were among hundreds of people airlifted to Anchorage, the state’s largest city, after the remnants of Typhoon Halong inundated their small coastal villages along the Bering Sea last month, dislodging dozens of homes and floating them away — many with people inside. The floods left nearly 700 homes destroyed or heavily damaged. One person died, two remain missing.
As the residents grapple with uprooted lives very different from the traditional ones they left, some of the children are finding a measure of familiarity in a school-based immersion program that focuses on their Yup’ik language and culture — one of two such programs in the state.
“I’m learning more Yup’ik,” said Martin, who added that she’s using the language to communicate with her mother, teachers and classmates. “I usually speak more Yup’ik in villages, but mostly more English in cities.”
There are more than 100 languages spoken in the homes of Anchorage School District students. Yup’ik, which is spoken by about 10,000 people in the state, is the fifth most common. The district adopted its first language immersion program — Japanese — in 1989, and subsequently added Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, German, French and Russian.
After many requests from parents, the district obtained a federal grant and added a K-12 Yup’ik immersion program about nine years ago. The students in the first class are now eighth-graders. The program is based at College Gate Elementary and Wendler Middle School.
A principal’s connection makes a difference
The principal at College Gate Elementary, Darrell Berntsen, is himself Alaska Native — Sugpiaq, from Kodiak Island, south of Anchorage. His mother was 12 years old in 1964 when the magnitude-9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake and an ensuing tsunami devastated her village of Old Harbor. He recalls her stories of joining other villagers at high ground and watching as the surge of water carried homes out to sea.
His mother and her family evacuated to a shelter in Anchorage, but returned to Kodiak Island when Old Harbor was rebuilt. Berntsen grew up living a subsistence life — “the greatest time of my life was being able to go out duck hunting, go out deer hunting,” he said — and he understands what the evacuees from Kipnuk, Kwigillingok and other damaged villages have left behind.
He has also long had an interest in preserving Alaska Native culture and languages. His ex-wife’s grandmother, Marie Smith Jones, was the last fluent speaker of Eyak, an indigenous language from south-central Alaska, when she died in 2008. His uncles had their hands slapped when they spoke their indigenous Alutiiq language at school.
As the evacuees arrived in Anchorage in the days after last month’s flooding, Berntsen greeted them at an arena where the Red Cross had set up a shelter. He invited families to enroll their children in the Yup’ik immersion program. Many of the parents showed him photos of the duck, goose, moose, seal or other traditional foods they had saved for the winter — stockpiles that washed away or spoiled in the flood.
“Listening is a big part of our culture — hearing their stories, letting them know that, ‘Hey, I live here in Anchorage, I’m running one of my schools, the Yup’ik immersion program, you guys are welcome at our school,’” Berntsen said. “Do everything we can to make them feel comfortable in the most uncomfortable situation that they’ve ever been through.”
Displaced students join Yup’ik immersion classes
Some 170 evacuated children have enrolled in the Anchorage School District — 71 of them in the Yup’ik immersion program. Once the smallest immersion program in the district, it’s now “booming,” said Brandon Locke, the district’s world language director.
At College Gate, pupils receive instruction in Yup’ik for half the day, including Yup’ik literacy and language as well as science and social studies. The other half is in English, which includes language arts and math classes.
Among the program’s new students is Ellyne Aliralria, a 10-year-old from Kipnuk. During the surge of floodwater the weekend of Oct. 11, she and her family were in a home that floated upriver. The high water also washed away her sister’s grave, she said.
Aliralria likes the immersion program and learning more phrases, even though the Yup’ik dialect being spoken is a bit different from the one she knows.
“I like to do all of them, but some of them are hard,” the fifth-grader said.
Also difficult is adjusting to living in a motel room in a city nearly 500 miles (800 km) from their village on the southwest coast.
“We’re homesick,” she said.
Lilly Loewen, 10, is one of many non-Yup’iks in the program. She said her parents wanted her to participate because “they thought it was really cool.”
“It is just really amazing to get to talk to people in another language other than just what I speak mostly at home,” Loewen said.
Bridging the gap between generations
Berntsen is planning to help the new students acclimate by holding activities such as gym nights or Olympic-style events, featuring activities that mimic Alaska Native hunting and fishing techniques. One example: the seal hop, in which participants assume a plank position and shuffle across the floor to emulate how hunters sneak up on seals napping on the ice.
The Yup’ik immersion program is helping undo some of the damage Western culture did to Alaska Native language and traditions, he said. It’s also bridging the gap of two lost generations: In some cases, the children’s parents or grandparents never learned Yup’ik, but the students can now speak with their great-grandparents, Locke said.
“I took this as a great opportunity for us to give back some of what the trauma had taken from our Indigenous people,” Berntsen said.
Third in a three-story series on mining in Alaska published in a partnership between Inside Climate News and Northern Journal. Read parts one and two.
By: Max Graham, Northern Journal
The Johnson Tract is a private parcel with a worker camp and airstrip, surrounded by the vast Lake Clark National Park. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
COOK INLET, Alaska—High in a mountain valley on the far west side of this tidal inlet sits an unusual plot of land.
It’s a private parcel, with a gravel airstrip and four or five buildings that make up a small worker camp. But there are no towns in sight. Known as the Johnson Tract, the property is fully surrounded by the vast Lake Clark National Park—millions of wild acres marked by the broad white peaks of a volcano, sprawling glaciers and a muddy ocean coastline patrolled by brown bears.
Beneath the Johnson Tract lies a potential fortune. For decades, geologists have eyed gold, copper and zinc deposits thought to be worth billions of dollars. But they’ve never been tapped.
Now, amid surging gold prices and rising demand for metals like copper, the prospect is generating new excitement—and concern.
A prominent Alaska mining company is leasing the Johnson Tract from its Indigenous owners, and the property, some 125 miles southwest of Anchorage, has emerged as one of the most promising mining prospects in Southcentral Alaska.
But conservationists, commercial salmon fishermen and local lodge owners fear a mine, encircled by the federal protected area, could disrupt harvests and harm wildlife, including an endangered population of beluga whales.
Getting the Johnson Tract’s minerals to buyers will require trucking ore through a now-roadless corner of the national park to a future port.
Critics point out that the bay where the mining company, Contango Ore, Inc., wants to build a shipping terminal is an important winter habitat for the endangered belugas. Concern for the whales, among other objections, led mine opponents to sue federal regulators earlier this year over a permit that Contango received to build a short access road and expand an airstrip at the site.
Mount Iliamna, a volcano in Lake Clark National Park, rises above Tuxedni Bay and a commercial fish camp on Chisik Island. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Still, the project is advancing.
The land is owned by Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Region, Inc., or CIRI, one of 12 Indigenous-owned regional corporations created by Congress as part of a wider land claims settlement with Alaska’s Native people in 1971.
Contango, based in Fairbanks, started leasing the land from CIRI last year. With gold prices surpassing a record high of $4,000 per troy ounce this year, the mining company is already planning new roads and a tunnel to allow underground drilling on the Johnson Tract.
If a mine gets built, both Contango and CIRI’s nearly 10,000 Indigenous shareholders are poised to profit.
“The stars might be aligned right now,” said Margie Brown, a former CIRI president who also worked for the corporation’s lands department in the 1970s, when the company acquired the prospect.
The conflict reflects a deeper tension between two competing visions for Alaska—one of environmental preservation, the other of industrial development. Both visions extend back to a time when Congress set aside large tracts of the state’s wilderness for protection but also carved out areas for resource extraction, often intended to benefit Alaska’s Indigenous-owned corporations. Rooted in a series of landmark bills in the 1970s and 1980s, the Johnson Tract saga echoes some of the state’s other, higher-profile environmental battles, including over a mining road and oil development in the Arctic.
As Contango forges ahead, CIRI is asserting its right to profit from lands long intended for development, while opponents say that mining imperils a still-wild slice of Alaska.
Commercial fisherman Dustin Solberg, left, walks across the bow of his skiff at the mouth of Tuxedni Bay. Solberg fishes with his son, Leif. (Photos by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Among critics of the mining project is Dustin Solberg, a commercial fisherman and environmental advocate who spends summers with his family setting nets for salmon along the beaches of Tuxedni Bay, about 10 miles northeast of the Johnson Tract. Contango could one day load ore onto ships from the same shore where Solberg and other fishermen haul fish out of the bay.
Standing on a quiet Tuxedni beach one day this summer with dramatic cliffs looming overhead, Solberg imagined mining trucks rumbling down a road nearby.
“I think it would irreversibly change this place,” he said.
A fishing tender anchored in Tuxedni Channel, with Lake Clark National Park in the background. The tender buys salmon from the bay’s fishermen and transports it across the inlet to a processing plant in the town of Kenai. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
A pivotal deal
The Johnson Tract fight is rooted in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Intended to resolve disputes over Indigenous land claims in Alaska, the federal legislation in 1971 established 12 for-profit Alaska Native corporations, each owned by Indigenous shareholders with ties to a region in the state. More than 200 other Indigenous companies tied to Native villages also formed.
The act promised to compensate the corporations with nearly a billion dollars and millions of acres of land, to be chosen by the companies’ elected leaders.
Those leaders quickly moved to obtain traditional hunting and fishing grounds and areas with cultural value, but they also sought land thought to be rich in minerals and other resources that they could convert into profits for shareholders.
In the Arctic, Native corporations acquired land with oil deposits. In Southeast Alaska, they logged vast stands of cedar and spruce.
But in CIRI’s region, around Anchorage and neighboring Cook Inlet, the pickings were sparse. The southcentral region is the state’s most populous, and by the time of the settlement, military bases and wildlife refuges had been set aside by the federal government, prime real estate was in the hands of private developers and other parcels had been snatched up by the state.
“You just had so much pressure for lands within the Cook Inlet region,” said Brown, who now serves on CIRI’s board.
The corporation’s leaders argued that they were largely left with glaciers and mountain ridges — dim prospects for shareholders.
CIRI’s headquarters in Midtown Anchorage. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Two years after Congress approved the settlement, CIRI sued the U.S. interior secretary, arguing that his agency had not made adequate property available for CIRI to develop. Tense negotiations ensued, producing a sprawling agreement between CIRI and the state and federal governments: the Cook Inlet Land Exchange.
The deal called for CIRI to give up half the property around Cook Inlet that the corporation was entitled to under the original settlement, Brown said. Some of that foregone land would be folded into Lake Clark National Park and Preserve when Congress created it a few years later.
In return, CIRI would be able to acquire land elsewhere in Alaska, and even outside the state.
The Johnson River flows about a dozen miles from the Johnson Tract through Lake Clark National Park into Cook Inlet. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The deal also allowed CIRI to pick up some key assets around Cook Inlet, including the Johnson Tract, which the corporation chose specifically for its mineral potential. CIRI’s early leaders viewed the land swap as a hard-fought compromise, and Brown called the Johnson Tract “key to the bargain.”
“The ability to use the land in the way Congress intended is something that needs to be preserved,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that as we move further and further from congressional intent, it’s harder and harder for people to remember that.”
The Johnson Tract is really two adjacent parcels, totaling about 33 square miles. CIRI—now a huge business, with nearly $1 billion in assets—owns the minerals beneath both parcels, and the surface of the south tract, where the main deposit sits. The federal government retained surface ownership of the north tract.
Citing a provision in the land exchange, the Department of Interior earlier this year granted CIRI the rights to transport ore through the park, with certain restrictions to limit environmental impacts. CIRI and Contango have not formally proposed building a haul road and port, which would require additional permits.
An “Awesome” Deposit
Soon after CIRI acquired the Johnson Tract, the corporation began scouring it for more minerals, seeking enough to justify building a mine.
In the early 1980s, CIRI partnered with Anaconda Minerals, a subsidiary of the global oil giant ARCO, to evaluate the prospect.
Anaconda found promising amounts of gold, zinc and copper and at one point—given the area’s prolific amount of snow—envisioned an underground tunnel or aerial tram to move ore the dozen miles from a mine to a port on the coast. But Anaconda went out of business. And aside from another unsuccessful effort to develop the Johnson Tract in the 1990s, the land sat largely dormant until 2019.
That year, CIRI signed a lease with a Vancouver-based mineral exploration company, which quickly handed over the operations to a spinoff firm, HighGold Mining Inc. HighGold spent tens of millions of dollars on exploration and drilled more than 150 core samples before Contango bought the company last year in a deal worth some $35 million.
The Johnson Tract appealed to Contango’s chief executive, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, because it seemed to be a good fit for the company’s unconventional development model, which involves shipping raw ore to a processing plant off site, rather than crushing and processing ore next to the deposit, as most mines do.
The approach avoids some of the more expensive and hard-to-permit components of a typical mine, like a mill and a big waste pond. In theory, it keeps construction costs low and makes permitting easier, Van Nieuwenhuyse said. But shipping unprocessed ore also risks higher transportation costs, so Johnson Tract’s close proximity to the ocean and shipping routes made it attractive.
“It’s an awesome deposit,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said, citing the prospect’s high ratio of valuable minerals to rock and its thickness, which he expects will make the mining process more efficient.
Van Nieuwenhuyse is a veteran of Alaska’s mining industry, having worked over the past four decades on some of the state’s most prominent early-stage projects.
He played major roles in advancing Western Alaska’s Donlin project — the state’s biggest proposed gold mine — and high-profile prospects in Northwest Alaska at the end of the controversial proposed Ambler Road. He also led development of the Rock Creek gold mine near Nome, which closed in 2008 soon after opening amid a slew of challenges.
At Contango, where Van Nieuwenhuyse was named chief executive in 2020, he partnered with the multinational Kinross Gold Corp. to spearhead the construction of Alaska’s first large mine in more than a decade, a project in the Interior called Manh Choh.
Unlike that open-pit mine, Johnson Tract would be an underground operation. Several years of exploratory drilling, permitting and engineering are expected before a final decision on building a mine, Van Nieuwenhuyse said.
A drilling pad at the Johnson Tract project. (Photo from Contango Ore)
The mine, according to Contango’s preliminary plans, would operate for seven years and would be small compared to other major Alaska mines. Contango would share royalties on mineral sales with CIRI, which has an option to buy as much as a 25 percent stake in the mine.
CIRI declined interview requests about the Johnson Tract, and the corporation’s executives have made few public statements about it.
The project “presents an opportunity to responsibly develop mineral resources to benefit our shareholders while respecting the environment and preserving the land,” CIRI said in a brief update last year. “The Johnson Tract project reflects decades of hard work to build a foundation of self-determination and financial stability.”
“We’re Here Because it’s Beautiful”
Dustin Solberg, the fisherman and mine opponent, was motoring to a net he’d set on the west side of Tuxedni Channel one afternoon last summer when he spotted a brown bear on a rocky beach ahead.
“I think it smells the fish, Dad,” 12-year-old son and deckhand Leif Solberg called out.
Far more worrisome to the elder Solberg is the future of the beach where the bear was roving—near a site that Contango is studying as a port.
Solberg, his family and others who fish in the channel each summer have growing concerns about Contango’s vision. They fear that a new road and industrial dock, and the traffic and noise from trucks and ships, would mar the wild character of the bay and the park around it.
Dustin and Leif Solberg haul salmon out of Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
As Solberg looked across the channel, it was remarkably quiet, aside from a few fishing skiffs and an occasional float plane that landed at a bear-viewing lodge on Chisik Island. Other than the lodge and a few fishing cabins, Chisik is a federally designated wilderness area, home to a prolific seabird colony.
A dozen or so crews fish commercially for salmon in the bay. Two or three times a week, from June through August, they set, pick and pull nets along pebbly beaches on either side of Tuxedni Channel, with fishing periods that can last 12 hours or more.
It’s hard labor, Solberg said, but the season moves at a slower pace than Alaska’s bigger-volume salmon fisheries, like Bristol Bay, where boats sometimes work 24-hour shifts.
Dustin and Leif Solberg work their net behind freshly caught salmon in Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
“If you wanted to make money, you would fish somewhere else,” said Ann Harding, Solberg’s wife. “We’re here because it’s beautiful.”
The area has “phenomenal” mountains and a striking density of birds and bears, added Harding, a seabird biologist who sometimes fishes alongside Solberg.
Ann Harding handles a freshly caught salmon as Dustin Solberg pulls another out of his net. (Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The family uses a cabin a mile or two down the shoreline from where the bear had been walking. It’s a small plywood structure beneath an A-frame roof, surrounded by an electric fence to keep away curious ursine visitors. The cabin is about a hundred feet back from the water and set fully within Lake Clark National Park.
Solberg and Harding bought the structure several years ago. They don’t have title to the land beneath it or a formal permit from the park service. But the cabin existed before the park was established, and past owners had an informal arrangement with federal officials to keep using it, Solberg said.
A cabin used by fisherman Dustin Solberg and his family stands in Lake Clark National Park, near the shore of Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The cabin now sits in an easement that the Department of Interior earlier this year granted CIRI for a mining port. Solberg doesn’t think his small business will amount to much of an obstacle.
“This is just a little shack that doesn’t really compete with the value of an operation like that,” he said, referring to the mining plans. “So, I don’t expect this to get in the way of anything.”
A National Park Service Map of the Johnson Tract, as well as easements where an access road and port serving a mine could one day be built.
CIRI and Contango have not made a final decision about where to put the port, and a CIRI environmental document said last year that there is “considerable uncertainty” about future construction.
Van Nieuwenhuyse, the Contango mining executive, said his company recognizes the rights of the setnetters, and he believes a mine can co-exist with the fishery.
“I would ask that everybody recognize CIRI’s rights as well,” he added.
Where Belugas “Hang Out”
As it gathers pace, Contango is facing opposition not just from the commercial fishermen but also from conservation groups and some tribal governments in the region.
A national group, the Center for Biological Diversity, along with the Homer-based nonprofit Cook Inletkeeper and the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, a tribal government, are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for issuing a key permit to Contango.
Several tribal leaders also have raised concerns about the project and have asked the Trump administration to suspend the permit.
A core concern among those opponents is that a mining operation could threaten Cook Inlet’s beluga whales, which are treasured by many Anchorage residents and local wildlife viewers.
The inlet’s belugas—which are genetically distinct from other beluga populations—once numbered around 1,300 animals, but their numbers sharply declined in the 1990s. They were listed as endangered in 2008 and still have not significantly recovered. The population now stands at some 330 whales.
Tuxedni Bay, ringed by the mountains of Lake Clark National Park, is an important winter habitat for an endangered population of beluga whales, according to recent federal research. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
During the summer, the belugas are commonly spotted feasting on fish at the mouths of salmon-bearing streams near Anchorage. Where they go in winter has been a mystery.
But last year federal scientists announced a big discovery in a study that analyzed underwater sound recordings.
The researchers, affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, identified Tuxedni Bay as the only known foraging ground for the whales between late fall and late spring. They warned that human-caused noise is a “key threat” to the belugas, which use sound to navigate and communicate, and that industrial activity could affect the quality of the whales’ habitat.
NOAA Fisheries, which led the study, declined interview requests. One of its scientists, in a press release announcing the study, said that “maintaining the status quo” may be all that’s needed to help the beluga population recover.
As Contango studies sites for a port, it’s now funding a new beluga survey by biologists working for the state of Alaska, which has often been more friendly to the mining industry than the federal government.
The survey is focused on the narrow channel where Contango is considering shipping ore, while the NOAA-led study looked more broadly at the 10-mile-long Tuxedni Bay.
“We want to know where the belugas like to hang out,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said.
One of the loudest voices advocating for the belugas and against development at the Johnston Tract is Cooper Freeman, a Homer resident and the Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The center is a 35-year-old nonprofit that aims to protect wildlife and ecosystems across the country, and it’s a participant in nearly a dozen active lawsuits in Alaska’s federal court.
In an interview, Freeman acknowledged CIRI’s right to the minerals at the Johnson Tract. But he noted that federal environmental laws still apply and argued that CIRI does not have an “absolute right” to build a mine.
In his view, the area is too ecologically rich—with its important beluga habitat and high density of brown bears, seabirds and shorebirds—to risk.
“It’s just an incredibly, biologically, intensively rich and completely intact area—one of the only remaining places like it in all of Cook Inlet,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any amount of money that’s worth destroying this place.”
Chisik Island is a federally designated wilderness area, aside from a few commercial fish camps and a bear-viewing lodge. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
There are no towns within 40 miles of the Johnson Tract—just roadless mountains, glaciers, forests and streams.
Aside from seasonal fishermen, CIRI and Contango’s neighbors include Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, a bear-viewing and sport-fishing business that’s near the mouth of the Johnson River, a dozen or so miles downstream of the mineral deposit.
Longtime lodge owners David Coray and Joanne Edney have kept loose tabs on the prospect for decades and have grown more concerned as Contango’s project advances.
In a recent interview, Coray and Edney said they’re worried that a mine could pollute the Johnson River and disrupt bear habitat.
“We understand their interest, and we understand their rights,” Edney said of CIRI and Contango. But a mining operation could come into “direct conflict” with her family’s business, she said.
CIRI declined to respond to questions about opposition to the project, and about how it’s gauging the views of its shareholders, some of whom have spoken out against it.
Van Nieuwenhuyse said Contango is committed to protecting wildlife.
“We’ll develop this deposit with minimal impacts to the environment, which we recognize as pristine,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said. “We’re all from Alaska. We enjoy the outdoors. That’s why we all became geologists.”
For Solberg, the fisherman, the convergence of competing interests in the area is “endlessly fascinating—and really complicated and really unfortunate.”
In a conversation after the fishing season, Solberg acknowledged a tension between CIRI’s rights to the Johnson Tract’s minerals and the spectre of a mine transforming the landscape and bay that his family has come to know and love.
Solberg said he feels “really torn” about the issue and that he respects CIRI’s land claims. But as one of the few Alaskans who spends long stretches of time in Tuxedni Bay, he feels obligated to speak in defense of its wildness and beauty.
“I just want decisionmakers to have their eyes wide open,” he said. “And to realize what’s at stake.”
This story was supported by a grant from the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism.
Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@northernjournal.com. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.
This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.
Research biologists pause among the wetlands of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, with the Brooks Range in the background. (Photo by Lisa Hupp/USFWS)
AP- Alaska Native tribes and conservation groups sued the federal government Wednesday, seeking in at least three separate lawsuits to overturn a land exchange aimed at allowing a road to be built through a national wildlife refuge.
Legal challenges to the land exchange agreement reached last month between Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and an Alaska Native village corporation include claims that it was not properly analyzed, that it poses risks to sensitive habitats and that it could threaten migratory birds that some Alaska Natives rely on for food.
King Cove, a community of about 870 people near the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, has for years pushed to have a road built through the refuge for access to an all-weather airport at Cold Bay, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away.
Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation have supported the cause, calling it a life and safety issue that would allow for emergency medical evacuations. The delegation has said King Cove’s airstrip can frequently be closed for bad weather, and that high seas can make travel by water between King Cove and Cold Bay challenging.
Terms of the agreement include conveyance by the government of about 490 acres (199 hectares) to King Cove Corp. for a potential road corridor, while the corporation would convey about 1,739 acres (703.7 hectares) to the refuge and relinquish selection rights to additional land. A decision document, signed by Burgum, says the proposed road would be about 19 miles, much of which would be within the refuge. It says it would be up to the corporation to obtain the necessary permits and funding for a road.
Elizabeth Peace, an Interior Department spokesperson, said by email Wednesday that the department doesn’t comment on litigation.
One of the lawsuits was filed by the Native Village of Hooper Bay, Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village and the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group. The tribal governments are hundreds of miles north of King Cove but have expressed concern that a road could impact migratory birds they rely on that stop along the way at the refuge.
Angutekaraq Estelle Thomson, traditional council president of the Native Village of Paimiut, in a statement called the refuge’s eelgrass wetlands “a lifeline for emperor geese, black brant and other birds that feed our families and connect us to Indigenous relatives across the Pacific.”
“We are joining this lawsuit because defending Izembek is inseparable from defending our subsistence rights, our food security and our ability to remain Yup’ik on our own lands,” she said.
Lawsuits also were filed by a coalition of conservation groups, represented by Trustees for Alaska, and by Defenders of Wildlife.
President Donald Trump signs the funding bill to reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The signing ceremony came just hours after the House passed the measure on a mostly party-line vote of 222-209. The Senate had already passed the measure Monday.
The shutdown magnified partisan divisions in Washington as Trump took unprecedented unilateral actions — including canceling projects and trying to fire federal workers — to pressure Democrats into relenting on their demands.
Democrats wanted to extend an enhanced tax credit expiring at the end of the year that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.
Here’s the latest:
Trump’s new ambassador visits head of Greece’s Orthodox Church
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the first female U.S. ambassador to Greece and a close ally of President Trump, visited the head of Greece’s Orthodox Church on Thursday, telling him he was the first person she called after being nominated to her new post.
Guilfoyle’s visit to Archbishop Ieronymos II came just over a week after she took up her new position in Athens. A former California prosecutor and Fox News host who was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr, the 56-year-old presented her diplomatic credentials to Greece’s president on Nov. 4.
“It’s wonderful to be here and I’m just very grateful that President Trump has blessed me with the opportunity to serve the United States here in Greece, for the relationship that we have and for that growing and blossoming going forward,” Guilfoyle said during the meeting with the 87-year-old archbishop.
Ieronymos extended his thanks “to the president for the opportunity that he gave us today. May God bless these relations.”
Medicare telehealth waivers that allow millions of older adults to get virtual health care without leaving home were restored through Jan. 30 in the government funding bill, after lapsing during the 43-day shutdown.
Patients and caregivers reacted with relief — but called for more action.
“We are pleased that Congress has worked together to temporarily restore the telehealth funding, but we hope they can make this a permanent part of the healthcare system,” said Martha Swick, a full-time caregiver for her husband Bill, who uses the program for speech therapy to treat his degenerative brain disease.
The deal also restored funding through Jan. 30 for a Medicare program that allows some patients to receive hospital-level acute in-person care at home.
Essential federal workers expected to get backpay soon, White House official says
Federal workers deemed essential, including Capitol Police officers, TSA workers and air traffic controllers, had been forced to work without pay during the shutdown.
But Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council at the White House, said their checks should soon be on the way.
“I think that the payments will come probably come in the next week,” Hassett said. “Maybe even before.”
Health care debate ahead
It’s unclear whether the parties will find any common ground on health care before the December vote in the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he will not commit to bringing it up in his chamber.
Some Republicans have said they’re open to extending the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits as premiums will soar for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies. Some argue the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals rather than go directly to insurance companies.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Monday that she was supportive of extending the tax credits with changes, such as new income caps. Some Democrats have signaled they could be open to that idea.
A bitter end after a long stalemate
The frustration and pressures generated by the shutdown was reflected when lawmakers debated the spending measure on the House floor.
Republicans said Democrats sought to use the pain generated by the shutdown to prevail in a policy dispute.
“They knew it would cause pain and they did it anyway,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Democrats said Republicans raced to pass tax breaks earlier this year that they say mostly will benefit the wealthy. But the bill before the House on Wednesday “leaves families twisting in the wind with zero guarantee there will ever, ever be a vote to extend tax credits to help everyday people pay for their health care,” said Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.
Federal workers deeply felt the impacts of the shutdown
The shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Throughout the shutdown, at least 670,000 federal employees were furloughed, while about 730,000 others were working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The plight of the federal workers was among several pressure points, along with flight disruptions and cuts to food aid, that in the end ratcheted up the pressure on lawmakers to come to an agreement to fund the government.
Throughout the six-week shutdown, officials in President Trump’s administration repeatedly used the federal workers as leverage to try to push Democrats to relent on their health care demands. The Republican president signaled that workers going unpaid wouldn’t get back pay. He threatened and then followed through on firings in a federal workforce already reeling from layoffs earlier this year. A court then blocked the shutdown firings, adding to the uncertainty.
Federal workers question whether the longest government shutdown was worth their sacrifice
Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work.
With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and are asking themselves whether the battle was worth their sacrifices.
“It’s very frustrating to go through something like this,” said Sweet, who is a union steward of AFGE Local 3343 in New York. “It shakes the foundation of trust that we all place in our agencies and in the federal government to do the right thing.”
The Office of Personnel Management posted on X that federal workers are expected to be back to the grind on Thursday, with Trump signing a measure ending the record 43-day shutdown.
“Federal agencies in the Washington, DC area are open. Employees are expected to begin the workday on time. Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the OPM posting says.
Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, speaks at a March 19, 2024, news conference held by the Senate majority caucus. Claman on Monday became the 14th candidate and second Democrat in the race to become Alaska’s next governor. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
There are now 14 candidates vying to become Alaska’s next governor.
State Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, announced his candidacy on Monday. He is the second Democrat in the race, after former Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich, also of Anchorage. The other 12 declared candidates are Republicans.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, is term-limited and not running.
Claman, an attorney and former Anchorage Assembly chair and acting mayor, has served in the Legislature since 2015. He served first in the House before being elected to the Senate in 2022. He is among the leaders of that body’s bipartisan majority caucus and chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a statement, Claman referred to his experience in the bipartisan caucus.
“As Governor, I’ll work every day to ensure our state government reflects the values we all share: safe streets, great schools, business-friendly regulations, and a growing economy that works for businesses and working families,” he said in the statement. “Our state deserves a leader who listens to and works together with the people of Alaska, leads with care, upholds our constitution, and sets partisanship aside to deliver real results. That’s exactly what I’ve done in the Legislature and what I’ll do for you as your governor.”
Claman, who represents West Anchorage, was reelected to the Senate last year. He would not be up for reelection until 2028.
In a brief interview Monday, Claman said he timed his announcement with fundraising rules in mind.
“It’s basically a year before the election. Because of the limits on fundraising – and I’m not going to resign – I need to get started before the session,” he said.
Under state law, sitting legislators may not raise campaign funds during legislative sessions, which in 2026 is scheduled to run from Jan. 21 to May 20.
Claman said he started sending out fundraising solidifications after he filed his notice of intent to run for governor.
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola is considered by observers to be the strongest potential Democratic candidate for governor, but she is also a possible candidate for U.S. Senate. Several Democratic leaders have urged her to challenge Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who is up for reelection next year.
The primary election date is Aug. 18, 2026. The candidate filing deadline is June 1.
Alaska’s gubernatorial candidates will compete in an open primary, with the top four finishers facing off in the general election under the state’s ranked-choice system.
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
AP- The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history appears to be nearing an end, but not without leaving a mark on an already-struggling economy.
About 1.25 million federal workers haven’t been paid since Oct. 1. Thousands of flights have been canceled, a trend that is expected to continue this week even as Congress moves toward reopening the government. Government contract awards have slowed and some food aid recipients have seen their benefits interrupted.
Most of the lost economic activity will be recovered when the government reopens, as federal workers will receive back pay. But some canceled flights won’t be retaken, missed restaurant meals won’t be made up, and some postponed purchases will end up not happening at all.
“Short-lived shutdowns are usually invisible in the data, but this one will leave a lasting mark,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at accounting giant EY said, “both because of its record length and the growing disruptions to welfare programs and travel.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a six-week shutdown will reduce growth in this year’s fourth quarter by about 1.5 percentage points. That would cut growth by half from the third quarter. The reopening should boost first-quarter growth next year by 2.2 percentage points, the CBO projected, but about $11 billion in economic activity will be permanently lost.
The previous longest government shutdown, in 2018-2019, lasted 35 days but only partially shut the government because many agencies had been fully funded. It only nicked the economy by about 0.02% of GDP, the CBO said then.
The current shutdown is adding to the economy’s existing challenges, which include sluggish hiring, stubbornly elevated inflation, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have caused uncertainty for many businesses. Still, few economists foresee a recession.
About 650,000 federal workers didn’t work during the shutdown, which will likely boost the unemployment rate by about 0.4 percentage points in October, or to 4.7% from 4.3% in August, when the last report was released. Those workers would all then be counted as employed once the government reopens.
Here are the ways the government closure is weighing on the economy:
Missed paychecks
All told, federal workers will have missed about $16 billion in wages by mid-November, the CBO estimates. That has meant less spending at stores, restaurants, and likely reduced holiday travel. Large purchases will probably be postponed, slowing the broader economy.
Trump had threatened during the shutdown to not provide back pay but the deal struck in Congress would replace those lost wages once the government reopens.
The shutdown has added to the Washington, D.C. area’s economic woes, where the unemployment rate was already 6% before the shutdown, after Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce this spring caused job losses. While the Washington, D.C. area — including the nearby suburbs in Virginia and Maryland — has the highest concentration of federal workers, most live and work outside of the nation’s capital.
Federal workers make up about 5.5% of Maryland’s workforce, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. But they also comprise 2.9% of New Mexico’s workers, 2.6% of Oklahoma’s, and 3.8% of Alaska’s.
Then there are the federal contractors. Bernard Yaros, an economist at Oxford Economics, estimates they could total as many as 5.2 million, and they are not guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends.
Flight disruptions
Airlines scrapped more than 2,000 flights by Monday evening after canceling 5,500 since Friday on orders from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is seeking to reduce the burden on overworked air traffic controllers, who have now missed two paychecks.
Even before the flight cancellations, Tourism Economics, an economic consulting firm, estimated that the shutdown would reduce travel spending by $63 million a day, which means a six-week standoff would cost the travel industry $2.6 billion.
The canceled flights also mean less business for hotels, restaurants, and taxi drivers. And federal employees have already pulled the plug on upcoming trips, according to Tourism Economics, which may not be able to be rescheduled even when the government does reopen.
Consumer sentiment
The shutdown has worsened Americans’ outlook on the broader economy. Declining consumer sentiment can over time reduce spending and slow growth, though in recent years Americans have kept shopping even when their outlooks turned grim.
Consumer sentiment dropped to a three-year low and close to the lowest point ever recorded in a survey by the University of Michigan, reported Friday, with pessimism over personal finances and anticipated business conditions weighing on Americans.
The November survey showed the index of consumer sentiment at 50.4, down a startling 6.2% from last month and a plunge of nearly 30% from a year ago.
Federal spending
While the shutdown hasn’t cut off all federal government spending, it has reduced purchases of equipment and has cut off the issuance of new contracts.
Yaros estimates that about $800 million in new contracts were at risk of not being awarded each day of the shutdown.
“The federal award spigot has all but turned off at the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Department of Homeland Security,” Yaros wrote.
SNAP benefits
The shutdown delayed the payment of $8 billion in monthly SNAP food aid to 42 million recipients in November, creating a significant financial disruption for many households that likely reduced spending. Some states have managed to pay full benefits for this month, though the Trump administration is still fighting over the issue in court.
The deal currently under consideration in Congress to reopen the government includes full funding of SNAP benefits.
Interest rate cuts
The government shutdown cut off the flow of economic data on unemployment, inflation, and retail spending that the Federal Reserve depends on to monitor the economy’s health. Even as the government reopens, some of that data will still be delayed. As a result, the Fed may not deliver a third interest rate cut at its December meeting, which was widely expected before the shutdown.
“What do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference late last month.
Powell said the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee is deeply divided over whether to reduce its key rate, partly because the economy’s health is unusually cloudy right now. The government has missed two monthly jobs reports and the October inflation data, scheduled to be published Thursday, will likely never be issued.
Powell said a rate cut in December was not a “foregone conclusion” and added that the lack of data could contribute to a decision by the Fed to skip a rate cut at its next meeting December 9-10. Fewer rate cuts could discourage borrowing and spending and weigh on the economy in the coming months.
“I voted” stickers are seen on display in the headquarters offices of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
State elections officials have begun reviewing signatures gathered by people opposed to Alaska’s system of open primary elections and ranked-choice general elections to determine whether a repeal ballot measure will appear before voters in 2026.
Alaskans enacted the state’s existing elections system via a ballot measure in 2020, and a repeal measure last year failed by only 737 votes out of 320,985 cast.
Based on state law and the number of people who voted in the 2024 statewide election, repeal supporters needed to collect signatures from at least 34,099 registered voters, including a certain minimum number in at least 30 of the 40 state House districts.
If the repeal petition is deemed to have enough signatures, it would go before voters in either the 2026 primary or the 2026 general election, depending upon the length of next year’s state legislative session.
If voters approve the measure in 2026, all three components of the 2020 ballot measure would be repealed.
That would have three main results. Financial donors to political campaigns would be able to conceal their identity by contributing to a political nonprofit, which could donate money to causes on their behalf.
The 2020 law, currently in effect, requires campaigns to disclose the “true source” of their money.
The second effect would be the repeal of the state’s open primary system, in which all candidates, regardless of political party, run in the same race. Under the current law, the top four vote-getters in a given race advance to the general election.
If that is repealed, political parties would be able to determine the rules for deciding which of their candidates advance to the November general election.
The third change is to general election. Instead of voters being allowed to rank all candidates in order of preference, voters would be able to choose only one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes would win.
One other ballot measure, which would reimpose a limit on financial donations to political candidates, has already been certified and is slated for the 2026 ballot.
Two other ballot measures remain in the signature-gathering process. One would decriminalize several psychedelic substances, and the other would reinforce the state’s existing prohibition on noncitizen voting.
Backers of those measures must gather sufficient signatures before the start of the January legislative session in order to force a vote in 2026.
Maureen Hall and Jennifer Skinner of St. Vincent de Paul
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, St. Vincent de Paul is gearing up for an anticipated community tradition, the annual Thanksgiving Basket Program, which provides full holiday meals to hundreds of local families in need.
Jennifer Skinner and Maureen Hall of St. Vincent de Paul spoke about the effort Monday noting that the organization expects higher demand this year due to recent cuts and delays in federal food assistance programs.
“We’ve been providing meals at Thanksgiving time for families in Juneau for a few decades now,” Skinner said. “We definitely see the need and meet the need for our neighbors here in Juneau. We anticipate, about 400 Thanksgiving baskets a year, but this year, given the current climate in our area, we are certain we’re going to see higher numbers than that.”
Families can register to receive baskets by visiting svdpjuneau.org and clicking on the events page, by calling 907-789-5535, or by scanning QR codes posted around town.
The baskets include all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving meal turkey, stuffing, canned yams, cranberry sauce, gravy, and more.
“So the items we’re looking for donation as well are, you know, the stuffing mix, canned yams, instant mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy mix, pies, butter, turkeys, and anything that goes into your own personal Thanksgiving meal prep is stuff we try to provide for our families.” said Skinner.
Volunteers play a crucial role in the program. Skinner said many Juneau residents make the annual basket delivery a personal tradition.
“We have a couple of folks that return every year as a day date to go and deliver Thanksgiving baskets. And they just really get a kick out of spending that time together and helping neighbors in need.”
Deliveries will take place on November 22, a pre-covid addition to the Holiday tradition that Hall said was inspired by a local man in town.
“I remember one year seeing an elderly gentleman come all the way from Douglas on the city bus, having to walk the extra couple blocks to where we were handing them out, he had a roller suitcase with him, and I thought, My gosh, we need to expand how we do the deliveries.” Hall said, “Instead of having people, often with disabilities or lack of transportation come to us, we continue to go to people’s homes and do all the deliveries that way.”
Skinner said local businesses and organizations are also encouraged to contribute food or monetary donations. “There’s always a way to give,” she said.
Nearly 2,000 Juneau families rely on SNAP, she said, and with the federal government shutdown surpassing records and funding running dry, those numbers could make this year’s Thanksgiving distribution one of the most critical yet.
United Way of Southeast Alaska has published an updated list of local food resources, including food pantries, meal programs, and emergency support services, to help residents access food assistance.
AP- The government shutdown is poised to become the longest ever this week as the impasse between Democrats and Republicans has dragged into a new month. Millions of people stand to lose food aid benefits, health care subsidies are set to expire and there are few real talks between the parties over how to end it.
President Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that he “won’t be extorted” by Democrats who are demanding negotiations to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Echoing congressional Republicans, the president said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” he’ll negotiate only when the government is reopened.
Trump said Democrats “have lost their way” and predicted they’ll capitulate to Republicans.
“I think they have to,” Trump said. “And if they don’t vote, it’s their problem.”
Trump’s comments signal the shutdown could drag on for some time as federal workers, including air traffic controllers, are set to miss additional paychecks and there’s uncertainty over whether 42 million Americans who receive federal food aid will be able to access the assistance. Senate Democrats have voted 13 times against reopening the government, insisting they need Trump and Republicans to negotiate with them first.
Trump said that’s true, but “we’re here right now.”
“Republicans have to get tougher,” Trump told CBS. “If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
With the two parties at a standstill, the shutdown, now in its 34th day and approaching its sixth week, appears likely to become the longest in history. The previous record was set in 2019, when Trump demanded Congress give him money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
A potentially decisive week
Trump’s push on the filibuster could prove a distraction for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Republican senators who’ve opted instead to stay the course as the consequences of the shutdown become more acute.
Republicans are hoping at least some Democrats will eventually switch their votes as moderates have been in weekslong talks with rank-and-file Republicans about potential compromises that could guarantee votes on health care in exchange for reopening the government. Republicans need five additional Democrats to pass their bill.
Thune told reporters Monday that he was “optimistic” that the Senate could vote to reopen the government by the end of the week.
But he also added, “If we don’t start seeing some progress or some evidence of that by at least the middle of this week, it’s hard to see how we would finish anything by the end of the week.”
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday there’s a group of people talking about ”a path to fix the health care debacle” and a commitment from Republicans not to fire more federal workers. But it’s unclear if those talks could produce a meaningful compromise.
Far apart on health care subsidies
Trump said in the “60 Minutes” interview that the Affordable Care Act — often known as Obamacare because it was signed and championed by then-President Barack Obama — is “terrible” and if the Democrats vote to reopen the government, “we will work on fixing the bad health care that we have right now.”
Democrats feel differently, arguing that the marketplaces set up by the ACA are working as record numbers of Americans have signed up for the coverage. But they want to extend subsidies first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic so premiums won’t go up for millions of people on Jan. 1.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said last week that “we want to sit down with Thune, with (House Speaker Mike) Johnson, with Trump, and negotiate a way to address this horrible health care crisis.”
No appetite for bipartisanship
As Democrats have pushed Trump and Republicans to negotiate, Trump has showed little interest in doing so. He called for an end to the Senate filibuster after a trip to Asia while the government was shut down.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the president has spoken directly to Thune and Johnson about the filibuster. But a spokesman for Thune said Friday that his position hasn’t changed, and Johnson said Sunday that he believes the filibuster has traditionally been a “safeguard” from far-left policies.
Trump said on “60 Minutes” that he likes Thune but “I disagree with him on this point.”
The president has spent much of the shutdown mocking Democrats, posting videos of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a Mexican sombrero. The White House website is now featuring a satirical “My Space” page for Democrats, a parody based on the social media site that was popular in the early 2000s. “We just love playing politics with people’s livelihoods,” the page reads.
Democrats have repeatedly said that they need Trump to get serious and weigh in. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said that he hopes the shutdown could end “this week” because Trump is back in Washington.
Republicans “can’t move on anything without a Trump sign off,” Warner said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Record-breaking shutdown
The 35-day shutdown that lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 ended when Trump retreated from his demands over a border wall. That came amid intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and multiple missed paydays for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC’s “This Week” that there have already been delays at several airports “and it’s only going to get worse.”
Many of the workers are “confronted with a decision,” he said. “Do I put food on my kids’ table, do I put gas in the car, do I pay my rent or do I go to work and not get paid?”
As flight delays around the country increased, New York City’s emergency management department posted on Sunday that Newark Airport was under a ground delay because of “staffing shortages in the control tower” and that they were limiting arrivals to the airport.
“The average delay is about 2 hours, and some flights are more than 3 hours late,” the account posted.
The Trump administration indicated in court Monday that it will only partially fund SNAP this month by using a $4.65 billion emergency fund. That left the program in uncertainty with no clear indication of how much beneficiaries will receive or when their cards will be loaded to buy groceries.
House Democratic leader Jeffries, D-N.Y., accused Trump and Republicans of attempting to “weaponize hunger.” He said that the administration has managed to find ways for funding other priorities during the shutdown, but is slow-walking pushing out SNAP benefits despite the court orders.
“But somehow they can’t find money to make sure that Americans don’t go hungry,” Jeffries said in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
AP- Back from a week abroad, President Donald Trump threw himself into the shutdown debate, calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government, an idea swiftly rejected Friday by Republican leaders who have long opposed such a move.
Trump pushed his Republican Party to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections and gives the minority Democrats a check on GOP power. In the chamber that’s currently split, 53-47, Democrats have had enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of health care subsidies. Neither party has seriously wanted to nuke the rule.
“THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER,” Trump said in a late night social media post Thursday.
Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself into the shutdown now in its 34th day — with his highly charged demand to end the filibuster — is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators toward their own compromise or send the chamber spiraling toward a new sense of crisis. Or, it might be ignored.
Republican leaders responded quickly, and unequivocally, setting themselves at odds with Trump, a president few have dared to publicly counter.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed them to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.
The leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged,” Thune spokesman Ryan Wrasse said Friday.
A spokeswoman for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican, said his position opposing a filibuster change also remains unchanged. And former GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who firmly opposed Trump’s filibuster pleas in his first term, remains in the Senate.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call,” from his chamber across the Capitol.
“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are “the president’s anger at the situation.”
Broad GOP support for filibuster
Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so in the divided Senate.
“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah posted on X Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments and echoing the sentiments of many of his Senate Republican colleagues. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”
Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago. But ultimately, enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.
He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home from Asia and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.
But later Friday, he did not mention the filibuster again as he spoke to reporters departing Washington and arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home.
While quiet talks are underway, particularly among bipartisan senators, Trump has not been seriously involved. Democrats refuse to vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the health care subsidies. The Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN that Trump needs to start negotiating with Democrats, arguing the president has spent more time with global leaders than dealing with the shutdown back home.
“People are stressing,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce.
“We are well past time to have this behind us.”
Money for military, but not food aid
The White House has moved money around to ensure the military is paid, but refuses to tap funds for food aid. In fact, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” signed into law this summer, delivered the most substantial cut ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, projected to result in some 2.4 million people off the program.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Friday the agency cannot release contingency funds to keep SNAP running, but two judges ruled nearly simultaneously Friday that the administration must continue to fund the food aid program. How quickly that might happen remains to be seen, as further consultation with the courts is expected on Monday.
Trump, in a social media post, said administration lawyers will be asking the courts “to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding,” Trump said.
“We are holding food over the heads of poor people so that we can take away their health care,” said Rev. Ryan Stoess during a prayer with religious leaders earlier this week at the U.S. Capitol.
“God help us,” he said, “when the cruelty is the point.”
Deadlines shift to this week
The House remains closed under Johnson with no plans to resume the session, and senators left for the weekend and are due back Today.
The next inflection point comes after Tuesday’s off-year elections — the New York City mayor’s race, as well as elections in Virginia and New Jersey that will determine those states’ governors. Many expect that once those winners and losers are declared, and the Democrats and Republicans assess their political standing with the voters, they might be ready to hunker down for a deal.
If the shutdown continues into this week, it could surpass the 35-day lapse that ended in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his demands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
