An effort to include back pay for contractors in the government funding deal is running into GOP opposition.

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"Thousands of federal contractors have not been reimbursed from the 35-day shutdown. This issue is still hanging in the balance," Schumer said. "No one should stand in the way of that. It's just not fair to them. They were hostages."

Congressional staffers are frantically trying to finalize the funding legislation. The measure is expected to be released as soon as Wednesday night.

Top Republicans on the bicameral conference committee appeared cool to making last-minute additions to the deal after an agreement "in principle" was announced Monday evening.

"That was not initially part of our deal," Shelby said. "I personally would rather keep it narrow in scope."

"No, it is not in this bill," she said. "I don’t believe it’s appropriate. It’ll be in an authorization.”



When asked about Schumer pushing the issue on the Senate floor, she replied, “Well, he’s a little late.”

The Democratic aide countered that talks have been ongoing for weeks about how to get back pay for impacted federal contractors included in the funding package.



The aide added that they had spoken to the White House two weeks ago and that, while OMB had questions, none of them were viewed as potentially fatal to the bill or implied that it was a deal breaker. The aide added that they had not gotten suggested changes to the back pay legislation from OMB.

Though Congress and Trump approved back pay for the 800,000 federal employees impacted by recent partial government shutdown, government contractors were not included in the agreement.

Chvotkin acknowledged that the legislation could be moved separately from the shutdown bill, but said talks were currently focused on getting it included in the funding deal and "riding the horse that's galloping down the track."

Back pay for federal contractors is one of a handful of issues that lawmakers are still haggling over. McConnell said on the Senate floor that Democrats are objecting to a "modest" extension of the Violence Against Women Act.

— Niv Elis contributed to this report, which was updated at 6:09 p.m.