House Republicans on Friday killed the Senate’s late-night deal for DHS funding, sans ICE or most of CBP. In the wee hours of Thursday night/Friday morning, the Senate passed by unanimous voice vote a full-year funding bill that would have ended the 42-day shutdown of DHS and resulted in paychecks for TSA and other unpaid workers. Republicans in the House, however, weren’t feeling quite so bipartisan on the issue.
“What the Senate just sent over to the House is so laughably bad, we’re rejecting it out of hand,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) announced. “We’re not going to move this Senate bill. We’re going to move something better and send it back to the Senate.”
“Could the Senate be any more lazy than to send us a bill that doesn’t do the job and then leave town?” he added. “We’re going to stand up and say no to that. We’re going to send back a bill that’s responsible to the American people.”
The Senate’s compromise wasn’t really satisfactory for either side. It didn’t fund ICE or most of CBP, which made Republicans unhappy, and it didn’t include any of the Democrats’ reforms for said agencies.
House GOP leadership refused to hold a vote on the Senate’s bill. Instead, they signaled they’ll bring up a short-term continuing resolution, or CR, to get DHS workers paid and make a little space for continued negotiations.
The rules of the House dictate crafting and passing this new bill will take more than a day, at least, meaning Congress will likely need to remain in Washington over the weekend. House leadership signaled they might hold a rule vote as early as Friday afternoon, leading to a Saturday vote on the final measure. Whatever comes of this will then have to go to the Senate before it can be sent to the president, and senators have mostly left for the weekend.
“PSA to Senate schedulers: may want to book a return flight for your boss,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) wrote on X. “Our work here isn’t finished.”
