Donald Trump’s threat last night to sign an executive order to pay TSA workers was, perhaps, a signal of where things were headed. “If the White House believes they have the authority to pay these workers, then every day for the past 41 days, they have been making a conscious decision not to pay them,” House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said last night, which was about right.
Overnight, as Emine Yücel reports, the Senate followed suit, approving a Democratic bill to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP. Notably, that means funding the TSA, giving away Republicans’ only point of leverage, airport chaos (a dubious point of leverage, to be sure).
The Democratic Party, seemingly having learned lessons from standoffs past, held firm on its commitment to withhold its votes until CBP and ICE accept reforms. Both agencies remain unfunded, though they each have significant slush funds from which they can continue to draw.
Senate Republicans are trying to spin this vote as Democrats losing their ability to make demands: Republicans will, they say, now fund ICE and CBP through budget reconciliation. But how fast — and even if — that reconciliation bill will come together is an open question.
