'I feel some gelling taking place,' says Sen. Bob Corker. | AP Photos Senators seek long-term solution

A large group of Senate Republicans is approaching influential Senate Democrats in an attempt to find a bipartisan, longer-term solution to the shutdown and debt ceiling logjam.

The Republicans are floating various proposals based off the rough framework provided by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) earlier this week. The discussions were described as “free-flowing,” by one source familiar with them, and include senators on a wide ideological spectrum.


Facilitated on the Democratic side by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the talks have been anchored by a group of deal-making Republicans like Collins, and Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have also talked with frustrated Republicans.

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The GOP proposals focus on a longer-term solution than anything being considered in the GOP-controlled House, where Speaker John Boehner is pushing a six-week debt ceiling increase before opening the government. Ideas being exchanged include a one-year extension of government funding at sequestration levels with more agency spending flexibility, a long-term debt limit increase of more than a year and a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax, changes to the Independent Payment Advisory Board and income means testing for Obamacare subsidies.

There is growing appetite for the Senate to forge a solution more comprehensive than the short-term, clean debt increase that House Republicans are pursuing.

“The Senate should act, okay? Then we try to coordinate with the House, but the Senate should act,” McCain said. “For the first time there seems to be some real movement.”

The Senate framework is different than the House proposal, which would still leave government shuttered. Senate Republicans have panned the House measure as too short and too narrow.

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Taken together, the House and Senate developments constitute actual movement in a stubborn stalemate that had enveloped Washington to this point. Just Tuesday, Boehner declared it would be “ unconditional surrender” for Republicans if they ceded to President Barack Obama’s position that there be no negotiation before the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is hiked.

“The government’s still shut down and that needs to be addressed. I’d like to see a solution to both problems, the debt ceiling with a responsible plan to pay down the debt and I’d like to see a plan that will reopen the government,” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I really don’t think postponing both of these for six weeks is a good idea, because we’re just back in the same soup we’re in now.”

Collins told POLITICO on Thursday that she’s been tasked by GOP leaders to gauge support on a two-pronged plan to solve the dual crises currently consuming Capitol Hill. Ironically, the Collins plan would actually make some changes to Obamacare in a way that the House bill, which was pitched at a closed-door conference meeting Thursday morning, would not. One option could be Senate amendments to the House’s debt ceiling plan to provide a broader agreement, several GOP senators said.

“My staff is drafting legislative pieces, but they’re doing so in terms of several different options to try to figure out what we can put together that would have the most support,” Collins said in an interview. She said GOP leaders “have encouraged me to go forward and proceed.”

Now, the White House says it is “happy cooler heads seem to be prevailing in the House.”

The two parties are now talking where once there was total silence. House leaders met on Wednesday for a rare meeting, though not much seemed to come out of it, while Obama has summoned lawmakers to the White House for a series of meetings. Senate Democrats and House Republicans will meet there on Thursday, while Senate Republicans are going on Friday morning.

“Everybody is trying to find a way out of this mess. Mitch [McConnell] is doing a job, I think, trying to put together something,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “There’s some things we can do that I think can be good government that can lead to the government reopening.”

“I feel some gelling taking place,” Corker said. “There’s still a lot of gyrations we need to go through over the next 24 hours, but I do feel some consensus developing.”

In the Senate, Collins and a handful of other Republicans are talking constantly with Democrats in an attempt to hammer out a broad agreement. It does not explicitly have buy-in from Democratic or Republican leaders, but top senators are encouraging the talks and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) called them “very serious.”The key hurdle for any plan is making sure not to alienate either conservatives or liberals.

The Senate GOP continues to strategize ahead of its meeting at the White House, and its efforts are particularly notable because they have not been dismissed out of hand by Democrats.

“There’s a lot of proposals floating around. People are trying to find a way out. That is the good news,” said Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who wants the government open and the debt ceiling raised before budget talks begin.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is still moving forward with a procedural vote on Saturday to raise the debt ceiling with no other policies changes through 2014, a plan that Republicans nearly unanimously oppose. That vote needs six Republicans’ support, which seems a near impossibility given movement in the opposite direction by Republicans in both chambers.

Senate Republicans are trying to craft a package that could conceivably attract Senate Democratic support and also be amenable to House Republicans. Thus far such a solution has evaded Congress as Senate Democrats and Obama have declined policy riders as part of the discussion and House Republicans have resisted a clean debt ceiling hike or a government funding bill that doesn’t affect Obamacare.

That changed on Thursday as House Republicans sought to move forward on raising the debt ceiling for six weeks to open up budget talks but leave government shuttered. Collins said that limited game plan is “baffling,” and she wasn’t the only Senate Republican to say so.

“I don’t think that we should just address the debt limit and not address the shutdown,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), a backer of Collins’s approach.

“We’ve got to deal with a CR [continuing resolution] as well. I’d like to do both,” said conservative Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). “I don’t think we’re serving any policy or political goals by keeping the government shut down.”

Other GOP senators who had been critical of fellow Republicans for trying to degrade Obamacare as a condition for funding the government said they would hold their fire on the House’s approach, another signal that Washington is cognizant of the economic mess it has made for itself. Some senators hope that by working in a comprehensive manner they can assist the House in a difficult quest to attract 218 votes to come to a fiscal agreement.

“The House has to move at a pace they can accommodate. And I think that’s what they’re attempting to do. If we can find a way to tie everything in a bow, maybe it helps them,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), a close friend of Boehner’s.