How Colorado’s representatives and senators voted on ending shutdown

Colorado’s U.S. House members voted along party lines Wednesday night as the chamber approved a bill to reopen the federal government after a historic 43-day shutdown.

The state’s four Republican representatives voted in favor of the funding bill, which passed 222-209 and went to President Donald Trump for his signature. Colorado’s four Democratic representatives voted no, largely citing the uncertainty for enhanced health care tax credits that are due to expire at the end of the year — and which won’t be resolved by the Senate deal that broke the logjam earlier this week.

On Monday night, Colorado’s two U.S. senators also voted no on the funding bill, declining to join the eight Democrats who allowed the legislation to move forward in that chamber. The Senate vote was 60-40.

“Trump and Republicans have created an affordability crisis for working Americans and refuse to come to the table to fix it,” Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Aurora, said in a statement Wednesday night. “I cannot support a bill that will make a bad situation worse and hand the American people a raw deal.”

Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican from Fort Lupton, countered that “for 42 days, Democrats have held the American people hostage” by repeatedly rejecting clean funding bills.

“Today House Republicans are ending the Schumer shutdown, reopening our government and fully funding three full-year appropriations bills that put America first,” he said, putting blame on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.