The secret meeting that ended the shutdown

Instead, after the Senate adjourned for the day and most reporters had emptied out of the halls, a small group of breakaway Democrats and an independent slipped unnoticed into the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.).

The shutdown was nearing the one-month mark and the group was growing antsy as federal workers missed paychecks and food-aid programs ran out of money. Two nights before Halloween, the senators sat down with Thune, ready to reopen the government, people familiar with the meeting said. “It was a group of people trying to solve a problem," said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and helped lead negotiations.

The meeting—one of several—had been requested by King and other centrists, including New Hampshire’s Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, all former governors. Republicans in attendance were Thune and Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, also a former governor and senior member of the powerful appropriations committee.

The group told Schumer they were talking to Thune and read him into their discussions, but Schumer didn’t participate directly, according to senators involved. Schumer wanted to extend the shutdown, arguing Trump would eventually engage in talks himself and they would get a better deal—one that would address expiring Obamacare health-insurance subsidies that Democrats had made their central demand in the shutdown fight, people familiar with Schumer’s position said.

The talks between the centrists and Republicans ultimately produced an agreement that would end the standoff but divide Democrats, with some seeing it as a failure of Schumer’s gamble that he could hold his caucus together long enough to force Trump to the negotiating table.

Throughout the shutdown, Schumer, the Senate’s most powerful Democrat, was on the sidelines, allowing a small subset of his conference to engage with Senate Republicans. The deal they reached funded much of the government through Jan. 30 and some programs, like food aid, for a full year. It has enraged many progressives and party activists, who say that the group got virtually nothing in return, and many have directed their anger at Schumer even though he didn’t vote for it. Schumer’s critics say his inability to keep his party united is an indictment of his leadership.

Those Democrats’ biggest gripe is that they are walking away with no guarantees that expiring health-insurance subsidies will be extended. In the negotiations with Thune, the group of centrist Democrats were willing to forgo such a guarantee: Thune offered them a vote on the subsidies by mid-December, though he wouldn’t promise an outcome.

Shaheen said that meeting face to face with Thune helped convince her that he would keep his word.

“We sat across from him, we looked him eye to eye," Shaheen said. She also has a backstop, since much of the funding expires at the end of January, when Democrats could trigger a shutdown again. “That’s certainly an option that I think everybody will consider," Shaheen said.

Divided Democrats

King, Shaheen, Hassan and other centrist Democrats updated Schumer regularly on their discussions with Thune and Republican appropriators, lawmakers said. In addition to Hoeven, they were working with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the appropriations chair, and Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama.

They believed that Schumer would carry more Democrats with him if he voted yes. Schumer told the group that he was open to a deal, as he had said publicly, but he thought what they had come up with wasn’t strong enough and suggested changes, a senator and aides familiar with the conversations said. He also asked them to wait on committing to anything until after Nov. 1, the start of Obamacare open enrollment, and then until after Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 4., which they agreed to do.

Frustrated Republicans publicly accused Schumer of holding their Democratic partners back. King said Schumer was providing feedback. “We weren’t trying to end-run him, and he had some input into what we were working on," King said.

On Election Day, Shaheen presented the centrists’ plan to their caucus at a lunchtime meeting, hours before polls closed in Virginia, New Jersey and other states, people familiar with the lunch said. More than a dozen Democrats were interested in the deal but not yet ready to vote for it.

Most of the caucus still wanted to stick together, especially once the full extent of their party’s landslide election victories became clear Wednesday morning.

But the shutdown was hitting new pain points. Flight delays piled up starting Friday. Some constituents had lost several paychecks. Others had lost federal food-assistance benefits or subsidies to heat their homes.

By Sunday, eight Democrats were no longer willing to wait.

The strategy “wasn’t working"

Schumer’s allies say he did the best he could with a bad hand and pointed out that few Republicans had expected Senate Democrats to hold out as long as they did.

But King said it had become apparent to him and others involved in talks with Republicans over the past few weeks that Trump wasn’t going to engage.

“We were harming a lot of people in the service of a strategy that wasn’t working. That’s it in a nutshell," King said.

Instead of negotiating, the White House nixed plans for stand-alone votes that would have paid air-traffic controllers or funded food stamps, rejected meeting requests from Democrats and refused to negotiate on healthcare until the government reopened.

Schumer made what would be his final offer on Friday: Democrats would reopen the government if Republicans agreed to extend expiring subsidies for a year. Republicans immediately rejected the move and the centrists’ deal gained momentum over the weekend.

On Sunday, Schumer said he couldn’t vote for a deal “that fails to address the healthcare crisis." With limited Democratic support, Republicans needed Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) to be the critical eighth vote. Britt said she worked with Kaine, the White House and GOP leadership to add language reversing federal layoffs initiated during the shutdown—and banning future layoffs through the end of January.

With Kaine now a yes, the Senate overcame a key procedural hurdle in a 60-40 vote late Sunday, advancing the measure to reopen the government with not a single vote to spare.

Schumer, who had drawn scorn in March for voting with Republicans to avert a shutdown, now drew scorn for failing to keep a shutdown going. He has claimed a partial victory in making healthcare costs the centerpiece of Democrats’ fight heading into midterm elections.

In a speech on Monday, Schumer warned that Trump and other Republicans will come to regret not negotiating to fix the subsidies when they had the chance.

“Republicans now own this healthcare crisis," he said. “They knew it was coming. We wanted to fix it. Republicans said no."

Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com, Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com