WASHINGTON — A new Senate Democratic plan for ending the longest partial government shutdown in history met with a wall of Republican resistance late Friday, signaling another round of contentious negotiations that could stretch at least through the weekend.

After weeks of partisan stalemate, Democrats took to the Senate floor to call for a one-year extension of expiring enhanced health insurance subsidies as part of a stopgap funding measure to reopen the government.

The proposal, which would include a bipartisan package of three full-year spending bills and a new bipartisan committee to address health insurance affordability, marked the first sign of tangible movement to break a month-old partisan standoff. Democrats had previously insisted on a permanent extension of the enhanced health subsidies, which Republicans say are unsustainable without new restrictions.

“This is a reasonable offer that reopens the government, deals with health care affordability and begins a process of negotiating reforms to the ACA tax credits for the future,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor, referring to the Affordable Care Act. “Now the ball is in the Republicans’ court.”

But Republicans united to denounce the plan after holding a closed-door conference meeting to discuss it Friday afternoon.

“There’s no way our conference is going to vote on what Chuck proposed,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “I don’t see anything changing, if at all, for a while.”

Even before the conference, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., called the plan a nonstarter in its current form.

“We’ve told them this is not something that’s going to happen in a couple of days,” he said. “This is one that we tried to start negotiating in September because it’s going to take time to work through.”

Among the problems, he said, is that the health subsidies are not subject to the so-called Hyde Amendment, which prevents public funding of abortions except in limited cases.

The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus quickly denounced the plan on the social platform X.

“This is an absurd offer from Chuck Schumer,” the group said. “They’re holding the entire country hostage to protect their failing health care scheme and enrich insurance companies, while funding abortion, child sex changes, and exacerbating fraud — all while families go without paychecks.”

And a White House official appeared to dismiss the proposal without explicitly rejecting it.

“This is a huge climbdown from their initial position and shows they’re under massive internal pressure,” the official said. “Ultimately, Democrats should reopen the government today and the administration will meet with them on the tax credit and work with them on it.”

Several Democrats tried to show unity behind their strategy Friday as frustration with the shutdown mounts. Moderate Democrats who have been part of talks with rank-and-file Republicans backed the proposal on the floor Friday.

“This is our path forward,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee. “This is how we reopen the government and lower health care costs for millions of Americans. This is what compromise looks like.”

As talks continued, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., adjusted his plans for floor action. Instead of making a 15th attempt to take up a House-passed continuing resolution, Thune pivoted to a bill from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that would pay government workers during the shutdown.

Johnson initially tried to pass his bill Friday by unanimous consent, but Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., objected, arguing the measure would give too much discretion to the president. Thune said he planned to hold a procedural vote to take up Johnson’s bill later Friday.

Another complication to Schumer’s offer is whether both parties can agree on what constitutes a “clean” continuing resolution to reopen government and what a “bipartisan” package of full-year spending bills must look like.

The top four leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees met Friday to try to put the finishing touches on a package of three fiscal 2026 bills that have been in the works for weeks: the Agriculture, Military Construction-VA, and Legislative Branch measures. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said the continuing resolution would run into January, as many leaders have called for, but appropriators were still trying to finish work on the three full-year bills in hopes of a floor vote on Saturday.

Trump administration moves to freeze and claw back previously appropriated money has eroded trust among Democrats to sign on to new spending deals. As a result, they have been seeking to use those bills to reverse funding cancellations, undo a “pocket rescission” of roughly $5 billion in foreign aid, and win a guarantee against future rescissions sought by the White House.

The expiration of the enhanced health insurance tax credits at year’s end has been at the center of the 38-day shutdown, with Democrats refusing to sign off on a spending bill that doesn’t extend them.

Some moderate Republicans in the House have backed a “clean,” one-year extension of the tax credits. The bill from Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., is co-sponsored by 14 other Republicans and 14 Democrats.

But a one-year extension would also punt a decision on the fate of the credits to the vicinity of next year’s midterm elections.

While Senate Democrats have been more open to a shorter extension of the credits, House Democrats have called for making them permanent.

“It’s a laughable proposition. It makes no sense,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during an October news conference when asked if he could support a one-year extension. “The Democratic position has been clear: permanent extension, and let’s go from there.”

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he can’t guarantee a vote on a bill to extend the health care tax credits, putting any potential deal in peril. Members of the Democrats’ progressive wing have demanded that any deal include a commitment to pass the extension into law, not just guaranteeing a vote.

(Aris Folley and John T. Bennett contributed to this report.)

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