The Minnesota shooting that involved Border Patrol agents has injected a volatile new factor into the fight over government funding and makes a shutdown far more likely.
Winter storms already squeezed lawmakers’ schedule, and this weekend’s shooting in Minneapolis involving Border Patrol has turned a tight funding fight into a political flashpoint. What was a narrow path to keep most of government running now looks blocked by energized opposition and fragile Senate math.
The House managed a surprising win by advancing a package that funds ICE along with five other appropriations bills through September, with votes like 341-88 signaling broad support for keeping most of government operating. ICE funding even drew some Democratic votes, and bills covering Defense, HHS, Labor, Transportation, and HUD were bundled to try to buy time and avoid a shutdown.
The snag is the Senate. Leadership hoped to expedite consideration with unanimous consent, but any single objection kills that shortcut. With the shooting fresh and pressure from party bases, some Democrats have signaled they will not provide the necessary support, and Republicans cannot clear the 60-vote threshold alone.
Senate Democrats are having a caucus conference . Republicans need Democratic support to clear the 60-vote hurdle. They don’t have it.
From Fox News’ Chad Pergram:
The sheer wall of opposition which is now mounting from Senate Democrats to the spending package before the Senate is making it increasingly likely there will be a partial government shutdown at 12:00:01 am on Saturday, January 31.
The shooting today in Minnesota appears to have pushed some Democrats over the edge in opposition to funding DHS and ICE.
It’s about the math.
Democratic votes are necessary to hit 60 yeas and break a filibuster on bringing the multi-bill spending package to the floor. Democrats are necessary to break that filibuster. They will likely stymie that bill now. The Democratic base simply will not tolerate a yes vote from their Members.
The House approved this measure Thursday. It funds 78 percent of all of government,
covering six spending measures. It includes the Pentagon as well as DHS/ICE.
No procedural vote would happen until Wednesday at the earliest. That could change depending on the availability of senators because of the monster storm this week. Much of the country may struggle to move for a few days.
Moreover, advancing this package through the House was a Herculean lift. The House is now gone. So the it’s impossible to revamp the package quickly.
The chances of a partial shutdown increased geometrically in just the past few hours.
The late British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said the most important factors in politics were “events.” We’ve now had an “event.” And this could dramatically impact the course of government funding this week.
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A Senior Democratic Congressional source tells Fox today’s MN ICE shooting presents a “new wild card” in the fight over funding DHS and the rest of the federal government before the 11:59:59 pm et deadline on January 30.
Fox is told this could further complicate an already challenging proposition to pass a government funding package by Friday night.
Many Democrats were skeptical of voting for the measure because of issues involving ICE. It’s possible this could push opposition to the measure over the top.
Sixty votes are necessary to fund the remaining 78 percent of the federal government, including DHS this week. That means Democratic votes are a necessity.
The DHS bill is not a separate piece of legislation. The House glommed the remaining spending bills together, sent to the Senate and left town.
So with the House gone, either the Senate passes the bill or government funding expires.
That block of reality makes the politics raw: Democrats facing an angry base are unlikely to hand Republicans the votes needed to break a filibuster on a package that includes DHS and ICE. With the House back home and the bundled approach already set, there is little time or flexibility to repackage the bills before the deadline.
Expect the winter storm to complicate scheduling and travel for senators, pushing procedural votes even further out and tightening the clock on options. The combination of bad weather, slim majorities, and a new politically charged incident means the path to a clean resolution is now much narrower than it was a few days ago.
No doubt calls to nuke the legislative filibuster will be pitched by the Trump White House. Once again, it’s a bad idea. This fight will largely come down to whether Senate leaders can find enough moderates and cross-party votes to bridge the gap before clocks run out.
If those votes don’t materialize, the government will face a partial shutdown when funding expires and the House is no longer in session to act as a quick fix. Lawmakers left scrambling in storm conditions makes a near-term compromise even less likely, and that is the central risk driving the worst-case scenario this week.
