Senate Republicans and Democrats will head into separate lunches Wednesday for their first in-person conference meetings on how to avoid a partial shutdown at the end of the week.
No one wants to see the vast majority of federal agency funding lapse at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. But partisan divisions over the Homeland Security bill are reaching the brink amid a weather-shortened week.
Senators have a few days to turn the tide.
— Democratic demands: Democrats expect to come out of lunch with a firmer wish list of policy changes they want incorporated into the Homeland bill.
“The things that we care most about are getting an independent investigation and ending these roving patrols that are terrorizing Minneapolis,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Homeland funding panel. “And solving these problems [with] secret police and getting some identification of body cams.”
A new polling memo circulating among senators, obtained by POLITICO, is providing some encouragement for Democrats. The Searchlight Institute found that “bipartisan majorities of voters oppose ICE’s lawless tactics, including detaining U.S. citizens (73 percent), entering people’s homes without warrants (79 percent), and failing to wear clearly identifying uniforms (70 percent).”
— GOP looks to the White House: Republicans are trying to come up with alternative solutions to address frustrations with President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda.
Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he’s encouraging dialogue between the administration and Senate Democrats to reach “some mechanism whereby you don’t have to change the bill or split it out and have to send something back to the House.” He acknowledged members of his own conference would block any attempt to strip DHS funding from the six-bill appropriations package.
Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Tuesday she’s also hoping for an off-ramp via executive action. The Maine Republican is in the middle of the fight to hold the funding package together as she navigates a DHS enforcement surge in her own state and a likely reelection campaign.
— Will the House return? Democrats want House leaders to bring the chamber back from recess to be ready to pass amended legislation — but Republicans say they have no plans to do so. One senior House Democrat told POLITICO it “seems inevitable at this point the House will be involved” and doubted the administration could do anything to convince Senate Democrats to pass the bill in its current form.
“I know the House loves recess — they do,” Murphy said. “The House does not like doing their jobs, but sometimes they might actually have to show up when the country is exploding.”
The Senate will vote Thursday on advancing the six-bill package as is. Thune said it’s “to be determined” what happens if that vote fails.
What else we’re watching:
— Rubio testifies on Venezuela: Secretary of State Marco Rubio will appear before Senate Foreign Relations at 10 a.m. to give his first public testimony to Congress since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Expect questions from lawmakers in both parties about the administration’s plan to get to democracy in Venezuela and who will profit from Venezuelan oil.
— ACA compromise? Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said Tuesday he’s expecting the bipartisan group of senators working to revive expired Affordable Care Act subsidies to release bill text “hopefully in the next day or so.” It comes after lead GOP negotiator Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) spoke with senators on the floor Tuesday evening about the health care framework.
Democrats in the negotiating group were initially caught off guard by Moreno’s apparent prediction of text, since they had neither seen nor signed off on anything, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. Other lawmakers were pessimistic Tuesday about the state of the discussions, which have been overshadowed by the fight over DHS funding after Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.
Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes, Adam Wren and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.