In the past few days, a bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators has come together to push both parties toward a compromise, hoping to reopen the federal government and raise the national debt ceiling all at once.
These 12 legislators, led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, are not the Senate's usual impact players.
Five of them are in their first term in office; three are in their first year in office — in a chamber where, traditionally, time turns into power at roughly the speed that dead plants turn into oil.