By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) — Party leaders in Congress have long criticized government shutdowns as toxic and destructive. “Always a bad idea,” former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of shutdowns in 2024. “I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last week. Democrats had won the House majority in the 2018 election and took power in the middle of the partial shutdown. Bipartisan negotiations in the Senate finally ended the shutdown, and Republicans did not win any major concessions on health care.