For the first time since the government shutdown began more than a month ago, there appears to be a tiny bit of movement.
The Senate will vote on Thursday on a pair of competing bills to reopen the government — one that includes President Trump’s long-demanded border wall funds, and one that would simply fully fund the government for a few more weeks without any wall money.
“For the first time, we will get a vote on whether to open up the government without any decision, one way or the other, on border security,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the Senate floor Tuesday night as the pair of leaders announced the deal.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office disputes that an agreement was reached — “There is no deal. We’re voting. That’s it,” a McConnell spokesman told TPM.
And there’s a good chance that both bills won’t go anywhere.
Republicans likely won’t reach the 60 votes necessary to pass the plan that includes $5.7 billion in funding for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats’ plan to temporarily reopen the government until Feb. 8 to allow both sides to negotiate on a broader deal would need support from President Trump to pass, which seems unlikely.
But after weeks of no Senate votes, the Thursday vote will at least get lawmakers on the record on whether they’re willing to support different proposals.
This post has been updated.
I look forward to Republican Senators tying themselves into knots to explain why they voted “no” on a bill virtually identical to one that passed unanimously a short while ago.
Edited to add that the headline is badly misleading. There’s nothing new here and nothing in these bills that is likely to end the shutdown.
Further edited to add that there is speculation from other respected commenters here that this is a sign of McConnell blinking. I sincerely hope that they are correct but I remain skeptical.
Edited to add that I now have data that indicates that McConnell did not blink. The “compromise” bill is out and, gee, what a surprise: Trump lied about its provisions. There are so many poison pills in this bill that no Democrat, even red state Democrats, should vote for it. It’s a complete rewrite of our asylum seeker laws, a Miller wet dream. This is not a good-faith effort to end the shutdown. These links aren’t even all of the poisonous provisions. There’s more in various Twitter threads, mostly by horrified immigration attorneys who have trouble believing what they are reading.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/government-shutdown-trump-asylum-offer_us_5c472b5ce4b0bfa693c75e0e
And cue the Coulter/Limbaugh outrage machine in 3…2…1…
No it doesn’t, Congress can override his veto.
Cc @mshuham
I don’t think that I want to predict the outcome of this. It is hard to make predictions when one has gone through the looking glass into Wonderland.
What is does do is now put the Senate on the spot.
Rs will have to justify their votes to keep the govt shuttered if they don’t vote for the Dem bill.