There is going to be a partial shutdown of the government at least into next week and probably longer. The House won’t be back in session until Monday, and even if the Senate votes on the five funding bills in the legislation before then, the 12 a.m. Saturday deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown will be missed.
The sixth funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security would be a temporary fix, funding DHS for another two weeks to give Congress time to come up with a compromise on ICE reforms.
A Trump-brokered deal with Democrats to fund five of the six departments was supposed to be voted on Thursday. Instead, it’s hanging by a thread because Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) objected to the unanimous consent motion to bring the five bills to the floor.
Trump agreed with the Democrats’ plan to separate the Homeland Security funding from the five other departments. However, to do that, all 100 senators have to agree. Graham objected to several aspects of the “minibus” (a play on the word “omnibus” referring to the usual designation of a multi-department funding bill), especially the section that “would repeal a prior provision allowing senators to sue if their phone records were sought or seized during former special counsel Jack Smith‘s investigation,” according to The Hill. The phone records section had been included in the March deal to reopen the government. Graham wants it back.
“I’m not going to ignore what happened. If you were abused, you think you were abused, your phone records were illegally seized, you should have your day in court,” he said. “Every senator should want to make sure this never happens again.”
Graham explained that dozens of private groups were prevented from suing Smith, not just senators. It was an important principle that needed to be upheld.
Trump took to Truth Social to demonstrate his unqualified support for the deal.
But Democratic leaders are still in negotiations with the White House over exactly what policy changes they want signed into law in return for their support for a long-term bill. Though Republicans have signaled they are open to some of the ideas Democrats have proposed, including requiring independent investigations, some in the GOP are raising warning flags about a fight to come.
Graham told reporters Thursday that while he was “willing to entertain some reforms … the cancer that we’re dealing with is sanctuary-city policy.” He wants a vote on legislation cracking down on those jurisdictions that don’t comply with federal immigration laws, an idea Trump also backed this month.
Republicans are already bracing for the possibility of another weeks-long stopgap for DHS if a deal isn’t reached by mid-February. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) went further, predicting that after the two-week stopgap “part of the government is just going to stay shut down.”
“Tomorrow’s another day, and hopefully people will be in a spirit to try to get this done,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said as he left the Capitol Thursday night. “Hopefully by sometime tomorrow, we’ll be in a better spot.”
Even if the Senate were to pass the five funding bills and the DHS temporary fix, the whole minibus package faces an uncertain future in the House. Many Republicans are upset about Democrats using the prospect of ICE reforms as leverage in the budget fight.
For Democrats, all eyes will be on the House, which means plenty of opportunity to bash Trump and the GOP and weigh in on ICE “excesses.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) asserted that the House plans to move forward with the agreed-upon legislation.
“But the House is going to do its job. We want to get the government funded, as does the president, so respect whatever he was able to negotiate there, and we’ll deal with it,” Johnson told The Hill’s Judy Kurtz at the premiere of the film “Melania” at the Kennedy Center last night.
The deal could fall apart very easily if Graham starts demanding changes unacceptable to Democrats. Thune is trying to find a way to get Graham to “yes,” but it’s proving to be very difficult.
Related: ‘Trump Accounts’ For Kids Could Turn Out to Be a Game Changer for the Next Generation
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