After a brief series of delay tactics deployed by Democrats, the Senate passed a $174 billion spending package, sending a trio of funding bills to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The move puts Congress one step closer to averting a partial government shutdown, but lawmakers are only halfway through completing and passing the legislation needed to keep the lights on in Washington, D.C.
Neither party is keen to repeat the events of last fall, when Congress shattered the record for the longest government shutdown in history at 43 days. Still, hurdles remain before the fast-approaching Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government.
Despite attempts by Senate Democrats to slow the process, with lawmakers railing against recent actions by the Trump administration in Minnesota and Colorado, the power of jet fumes and an impending week-long break from the Capitol smashed through any resistance.
The three-bill package, known as a minibus, includes legislation to fund commerce, justice, science and related agencies; energy and water development and related agencies; and interior, environment and related agencies.
Comparatively, that package, and a forthcoming two-bill package from the House, are much easier lifts for lawmakers to pass than what’s to come.
Funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proved tricky, given congressional Democrats’ outrage over the agency’s actions in Minnesota.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., was hopeful that a forthcoming package would include that bill, and that it could advance through the House to the Senate in the coming weeks.
‘Appropriators are working on another package of the four remaining bills, which I hope will receive the same bipartisan backing that has characterized the appropriations cycle thus far,’ Thune said on the Senate floor. ‘And before the end of the month the Senate will need to process all of these funding bills and get them to the president’s desk.’
But there is an acknowledgment among several lawmakers that Congress will likely have to turn to a short-term funding extension, or continuing resolution (CR), for some remaining funding bills or directly targeted at DHS.
Congressional Democrats are demanding restrictions on DHS funding, particularly money that flows to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent last week.
Lawmakers are staying tight-lipped, for now, about what exactly the restrictions could be.
In the upper chamber, Homeland Security Appropriations Chair Katie Britt, R-Ala., said that Republicans had sent a ‘counteroffer to the Democrats but have yet to hear back from them.’
When asked if, ultimately, a CR for just DHS funding would be acceptable for the time being, she told Fox News Digital, ‘What I want to do is actually pass a bill.’
‘I find it hard to believe that Democrats would give President Trump, in their words, a ‘slush fund’ on DHS,’ Britt said. ‘So I think figuring out a pathway forward is what we need to do for everybody involved. And so I’m continuing to be committed to doing that. Time is of the essence.’
Britt’s opposite on the committee, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., noted that the bill was ‘obviously the hardest,’ but contended that Democrats did not want to try to fix every issue in one fell swoop.
He also believed that a CR wouldn’t fix any of the issues, either.
‘A CR doesn’t stop them from terrorizing our citizens, doesn’t stop the violence,’ Murphy said. ‘So, a CR isn’t great. A budget without any constraints on DHS isn’t likely to get a lot of Democratic votes either.’
‘That’s one of the difficult things to figure out, is whether there’s any language you can put in a budget that the administration will follow,’ he continued. ‘But yes, I think there are ways that we could write accountability into the budget that would be hard for the administration to avoid.’
The Senate’s passage of the minibus comes after the House advanced its latest two-bill package on Wednesday evening. That bill totaled roughly $80 billion in funding for the State Department and related national security, as well as federal financial services and general government operations.
That legislation easily passed the House in a 341-79 vote on Wednesday evening and is now headed to the Senate for its consideration.
House appropriators are expected to release the text of their minibus covering the War Department, Labor Department, Education Department, Department of Transportation, and Department of Health and Human Services, among others, in the coming days.
House GOP leaders are hoping to advance that bill, which will likely be the largest by far, next week while the Senate is in recess. The House will be out the following week.
Questions remain about whether DHS funding will be part of that legislation or its own standalone issue, however.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday, ‘Right now, there’s no bipartisan path forward for the Department of Homeland Security bill.’
