Congress is halfway through approving government funding for the current budget year that began Oct. 1 after the Senate on Thursday passed a three-bill package with a vote of 82-15. The Senate’s action sends the measure to President Donald Trump for signature into law, while the remaining work shifts to negotiations over the Department of Homeland Security.
Lawmakers are trying to complete passage of all 12 annual spending bills before a Jan. 30 deadline established in a funding patch that ended a 43-day government shutdown in November. With Thursday’s Senate votes, six of the 12 bills have now passed through both chambers, according to the Associated Press report.
The Senate’s recent success would reduce the impact of a shutdown at the end of January, in the unlikely event one occurs, the report said. Congress has already provided full-year funding for several agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Justice.
Still, the report described a looming fight over the Homeland Security funding bill. Lawmakers must negotiate that bill as tensions rise on Capitol Hill after the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Lawmakers from both parties are seeking a deal to avoid another lapse in funding while they finish the remaining bills.
Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, “Our goal, Mr. President is to get all of these bills signed into law. No continuing resolutions that lock in previous priorities and don’t reflect today’s realities,” adding, “No more disastrous government shutdowns that are totally unnecessary and so harmful.”
Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the Homeland Security bill was pulled from being brought to the House this week so lawmakers could “buy some time” as they respond to the Minneapolis shooting. The AP report said Democrats are seeking “guardrails” tied to funding for ICE, with Rep. Rosa DeLauro saying, “We can’t deal with the lawlessness and terrorizing of communities.”
The AP report said the debate is also tied to anger among House Democrats over what it described as Trump’s deportation crackdown, focused on cities in Democratic-leaning states. Federal officials said last week’s shooting that killed Renee Good was an act of self-defense, while the mayor described it as reckless and unnecessary, according to the report.
Democrats are pushing for changes that would govern ICE, the report said. Some 70 Democrats have signed an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and others are seeking specific requirements such as body cameras for ICE agents. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “There are a variety of different things that we have put on the table and will continue to put on the table to get ICE under control so that they are actually conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, as opposed to operating as if they’re above the law, somehow thinking they’ve got absolute immunity.”
The AP report also cited opposition from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which said it is against any funding to immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security unless there are “meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.” Cole said any changes would need sign-on from the White House, and he described a potential path in which Democrats get a separate vote on the Homeland Security bill that could then be combined with other spending bills for transmittal to the Senate, using a procedural tactic Republicans used previously in the House.
The options for Democrats, the AP report said, are constrained. It described that if Congress passes a continuing resolution to fund the agency at current levels, it would give the Trump administration more discretion to spend the money as it wants. It also said that even if Congress were to eliminate funding for ICE, it would not stop large sums from flowing to the agency because Trump’s tax cut and border security bill passed last summer injects roughly $170 billion into immigration enforcement over the next four years.
Republicans may also frame the Homeland Security votes as political tests for House Democrats, the report added. It said a vote to eliminate funding could put some Democrats in difficult reelection situations in the fall as Republicans accuse them of insufficiently supporting law enforcement.