Bill Aimed at Avoiding Government Shutdown Stalls in Senate as Democrats Twist Arms on Homeland Security Funding

Senators will have to take another pass at approving a government funding deal before the Friday shutdown deadline after a large bipartisan majority voted against moving the House-passed bill forward on Thursday. Democrats are demanding statutory changes at the Department of Homeland Security following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota this month. The House passed the funding bill, which includes six different pieces of legislation to fund various parts of the government, last week. One of those six components is the bill to fund DHS through the end of the fiscal year. Senate Democrats — who have the power to block the funding legislation due to the chamber’s 60-vote threshold — want the DHS portion stripped out so it can be renegotiated. If no bill is signed by Mr. Trump by the end of the day on Friday, then the United States will suffer another shutdown, though a deal seems to be quickly coming together. President Trump during a cabinet meeting on Thursday insisted that a deal would be made shortly, promising to work on a solution with Democrats. “I think we’re getting close,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll work in a very bipartisan way.”The motion to end debate and proceed with the spending legislation failed in the Senate by a margin of 45 to 55, with all Democrats and eight Republicans voting no. The proposal around which senators are now coalescing is splitting the DHS spending bill from the six-bill package and extending current funding for the next few weeks as negotiations are ongoing. The other five bills would be passed and then sent back to the House as senators and the White House hammer out final details. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats laid out their demands for reforms at ICE, Border Patrol, and other immigration enforcement agencies following the deaths at Minneapolis. The proposed reforms, which would be codified in law, include an end to “roving patrols,” new restrictions on what kinds of warrants can be used for searches, required coordination between federal, state, and local officials, the implementation of a uniform code of conduct, assurances that independent investigations of incidents involving agents, and requirements that agents wear body cameras and identify themselves.“Under Secretary Noem and Stephen Miller, ICE has been unleashed without guardrails. They violate Constitutional rights all the time, and they are deliberately refusing to coordinate with state and local law enforcement,” Mr. Schumer told reporters on Wednesday. “This is chaos.”The majority leader, Senator John Thune, is supportive of ongoing negotiations. During the shutdown last year, he refused to engage with Democrats’ demands for an extension of health insurance subsidies. “If there are things that Democrats want, that the [Trump] administration can agree with them about, then let’s do that,” Mr. Thune told reporters Wednesday.Senate Democrats are squarely united on this DHS fight. One lawmaker who staunchly opposed her party’s shutdown strategy last year, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, wants the DHS bill split off so negotiations can continue. She says so far, Republicans are working in good faith. “We have been talking to Republicans who seem to understand the gravity of the situation societally, and I’m confident we can land it,” she told CNN in an interview on Thursday.

Bill Aimed at Avoiding Government Shutdown Stalls in Senate as Democrats Twist Arms on Homeland Security Funding

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