The Senate giveth, and the House taketh away.
Less than 24 hours after Congress appeared on the brink of finally ending the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security — courtesy of a bipartisan Senate deal — lawmakers are back at square one.
Late Friday night, the House passed a 60-day continuing resolution for DHS, 213-203, with all but three Democrats voting “no” and all Republicans voting “yes.” (Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Don Davis, D-N.C., and Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, D-Wash., joined Republicans in support of the bill.)
While that may seem like a step in the right direction, the reality is the legislation is “dead on arrival” in the Senate, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday.
Senate Democrats have repeatedly rejected similar such proposals, with Democrats maintaining they won’t approve more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement without reforms. Senate Republicans, for their part, have resisted the proposed changes at ICE, including banning the use of administrative warrants and requiring ICE agents to remove face coverings.
The compromise senators ultimately reached worked around that impasse. The deal was Democrats and Republicans would fund most of DHS while excluding ICE and certain operations at Customs and Border Protection. Republicans could then add funding for those agencies in a future reconciliation bill.
Not that those agencies strictly need funding at the moment. The last reconciliation bill, which became law in July, included a $75 billion pot of money for ICE, roughly seven times the agency’s annual budget — a point which conservative senators, like Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, noted when they supported the Senate deal.
But Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wanted no part of the Senate agreement, calling it a “joke” to reporters on Friday and a “crap sandwich” on a private conference call with House Republicans, according to a source on the line.
Instead, Johnson put forward this stopgap and is sending his members home for a two-week recess, just as senators are on their own two-week recess until after Easter.
Notably, President Donald Trump is also removing a key pressure point for a deal: airport disruptions. On Friday, the president directed DHS to declare an emergency and pay Transportation Security Administration workers, aiming to end the long security lines that had become the most visible consequence of the DHS shutdown.
Now, with lawmakers gone and airport lines potentially easing, this funding lapse is on track to become the longest of all time, surpassing the 43-day shutdown last fall when the current standoff reaches that mark on Sunday.
Democrats repeatedly pointed out that, for all the outrage that House Republicans mustered against the Senate deal late Friday night, every GOP senator supported the agreement just hours earlier.
With the House GOP refusing to put the Senate bill up for a vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., argued that House Republicans are the “only thing” standing between a deal.
“MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives continue to inflict pain on the American people,” he said.
But while this shutdown is yet another standoff between Democrats and Republicans, it’s also become a clash between the House and Senate, exposing a potential fissure between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
On a private House Republican conference call Friday afternoon, Johnson suggested Thune and the Senate had “cut off communications with us,” according to the source on the line who was granted anonymity to share the private discussions.
A separate source, familiar with Johnson and Thune’s communications, disputed that characterization, telling MS NOW that Thune and Johnson were, in fact, in touch Thursday night as the Senate worked to land the DHS agreement. Thune also told reporters early Friday morning that he had been texting with Johnson overnight.
But Johnson acted as if he was blindsided by the Senate deal. He told reporters that he had to “protect the House” by rejecting the agreement.
“And I have to protect the American people,” Johnson said.
Still, asked about his relationship with Thune on Friday, Johnson argued his ire was directed at Schumer, not Thune.
“The House and Senate Republicans have worked very well together as a seamless team and I don’t blame the Republicans in the Senate,” Johnson said. “I blame Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.”
Of course, not all House Republicans agree with Speaker Johnson’s decision to reject the Senate-passed bill, with several speaking out against the plan on a private House Republican caucus conference call Friday afternoon.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, said she had “tremendous concerns” about Johnson’s stopgap funding bill approach, according to the source on the call. And several other Republicans voiced concerns that, by rejecting the Senate bill and prolonging the shutdown, they run the risk of owning the DHS shutdown.
“We are going to suffer the blame,” Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., said, according to the source.
“We are going to be the ones to blame even if it isn’t our fault,” he said.
Mychael Schnell, Lillie Boudreaux an Jack Fitzpatrick contributed to this report.
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