WASHINGTON >> A deal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history cleared Congress today, after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.

The Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209, with President Donald Trump’s support largely keeping his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.

(Hawaii Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda voted against the measure.

( Tokuda said in a written statement after the vote, “Today’s vote to end the shutdown is NOT a victory. It may reopen government, but it shuts the door on affordable health care for millions. This bill does nothing to help parents take their keiki to the doctor, seniors afford their medications, or small business owners cover their workers. It does nothing for families struggling to put food on the table or keep a roof over their heads.”)

The bill has already passed the Senate and the White House said Trump will sign it into law later today, ending the shutdown.

It would extend funding through Jan. 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion a year to its $38 trillion in debt.

“I feel like I just lived a Seinfeld episode. We just spent 40 days and I still don’t know what the plot-line was,” said Republican Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona, likening Congress’ handling of the shutdown to the misadventures of the popular 1990s sitcom.

“I really thought this would be like 48 hours: people will have their piece, they’ll get a moment to have a temper tantrum, and we’ll get back to work.” He added: “What’s happened now when rage is policy?”

The vote came eight days after Democrats won several high-profile elections that many in the party thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of the year.

While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson has made no such promise in the House.

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who last week was elected as New Jersey’s next governor, spoke against the funding bill in her last speech on the U.S. House floor before she resigns from Congress next week, encouraging her colleagues to stand up to Trump’s administration.

“To my colleagues: Do not let this body become a ceremonial red stamp from an administration that takes food away from children and rips away healthcare,” Sherrill said. “To the country: Stand strong. As we say in the Navy, don’t give up the ship.”

Despite the recriminations, neither party appears to have won a clear victory. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released today found that 50% of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown, while 47% blamed Democrats.

The vote came on the Republican-controlled House’s first day in session since mid-September, a long recess intended to put pressure on Democrats.

The chamber’s return also set the clock ticking on a vote to release all unclassified records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein Opens in a new tab, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.

Johnson on Wednesday swore in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who won a September special election to fill the Arizona seat of her late father, Raul Grijalva. She provided the final signature needed for a petition to force a House vote on the issue, hours after House Democrats released a new batch of Epstein documents.

That means that, after performing its constitutionally mandated duty of keeping the government funded, the House could once again be consumed by a probe into Trump’s former friend whose life and 2019 death in prison have spawned countless conspiracy theories.

The funding package would allow eight Republican senators to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for alleged privacy violations stemming from the federal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

It retroactively makes it illegal in most cases to obtain a senator’s phone data without disclosure and allows those whose records were obtained to sue the Justice Department for $500,000 in damages, along with attorneys’ fees and other costs.

Star-Advertiser staff contributed to this report.