On Wed., Nov. 12, the United States House of Representatives passed legislation to end a 43-day government shutdown that affected millions of Americans by restoring funding for federal services and air traffic control operations.

Sophomore Olivia Garza Hermosillo, a current Behavioral Science major, expressed that she initially felt a mix of confusion and concern regarding the government shutdown. She said, “I know shutdowns happen when the government can’t agree on a budget, but it still felt surprising that things had reached that point again. I also worried about how it would affect everyday people who rely on government services or federal jobs.”

She added, “While I didn’t experience any major changes in my own daily life, I did see other people dealing with delays in federal services like passport processing. In the community, I noticed increased stress for people who rely on public programs or hold government jobs, since many of them were unsure about their pay or access to certain services.”

Junior Aliya Reeder, a Liberal Arts major, said she was personally impacted by the government shutdown. “I didn’t know much about the shutdown until I was returning to California from a trip to St. Louis. During my layover in Denver with my fiancé, our 10 p.m. flight kept getting pushed back, and we didn’t board until about 1 a.m. We left even later because a drunk passenger was angry about the delays and had to be removed by police,” she said.

Reeder expressed that experiencing the effects of the stalemate first-hand made her dissatisfied with how the government operates during a shutdown. She said, “This made me frustrated at Congress because of how easily they sacrificed so many facets of everyday life of average people in order to kick the political football to one another.” 

About 1.4 million federal employees and 42 million Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients were impacted by Congress as they were unable to agree on a funding bill for the 2026 fiscal year. Because the Antideficiency Act prohibits agencies from spending money without Congressional approval, the standstill prompted a shutdown.

Dr. Bryan Santin, professor of History and Political Thought, explained that governmental shutdowns are intended as budgeting tools, but are often used as political weapons, as in this case. “This looks like the type of situation that James Madison (often called the father of the Constitution) feared: Madison understood Congress to be the most powerful branch, but he also feared that its internal factions would sometimes override the public good in favor of narrow partisan advantage,” he said. 

He added, “The shutdown looks like a drift from productive deliberation and disagreement (which can be good) toward a damaging form of partisan brinkmanship.”

Santin shared that the shutdown resulted from deeper structural disagreements, rather than a single policy dispute. “For members of Congress in both parties, it looks like they believed that their respective voters would reward confrontation, instead of cooperation and compromise, which does not bode well for the future either,” he said. 

With Reeder’s first-hand experience from the shutdown, she feels that the government should have preparations in place beforehand, so that it does not cause disruptions in Americans' lives. “I would appreciate it if the government had enough foresight to provide for the wages of truly essential employees and the federal government. I believe supplies and pay should be provided to essential jobs in the government that affect the day-to-day lives of Americans more directly than the average bureaucratic agency,” she said.

Echoing Reeder, Garza Hermosillo said, “It would help to have policies ensuring federal workers still receive pay or at least emergency support and to have clearer communication from the government. Better long-term planning might also reduce how often shutdowns occur.” 

Santin agreed that the government should have preventions in place for the future, but must be careful not to disrupt the checks and balances of the branches. “Careful reforms would probably need to preserve Congress's power while reducing the incentives to use the budget as a political hostage and create this type of crisis in the future. But that would only happen if voters hold both parties accountable,” he said. 

Tags: community, Politics

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