The House approved a Republican-backed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday by a vote of 218-206, marking the third time the lower chamber has passed such a measure as lawmakers grind through a 41-day partial government shutdown with no resolution in sight.
According to The Hill, four Democrats crossed the aisle to support the bill: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. The same four lawmakers backed a similar bill in March.
The Senate is set to vote on another House-passed DHS funding measure Thursday, but the upper chamber remains the bottleneck. It has been the bottleneck for weeks. And with lawmakers scheduled to leave for a two-week recess beginning March 30, the window for action is closing fast.
Earlier this week, Senate Republicans floated a proposal to immediately fund key DHS agencies through regular order while routing funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations through a reconciliation package. It was a concession designed to break the logjam.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected it and put forward a counteroffer instead.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday that Democrats now have what he considers the last proposal they're going to get: "Are now in possession of what I think is our last and final offer."
Thune did not go into specifics but added simply: "Let's hope this gets it done."
Republicans accuse Democrats of moving the goalposts, and it's hard to argue otherwise. The White House and Democrats have exchanged counterproposals for weeks with nothing to show for it. The House has now done its job three times. The Senate has not done it once.
While senators negotiate, the partial shutdown continues to grind against real people. TSA workers are going without pay. Travelers are being forced to wait for hours in airport security lines. The agencies responsible for border security and immigration enforcement are operating under uncertainty.
This shutdown has already eclipsed the 43-day record set last year for the longest in recent memory. Every day it continues, the dysfunction deepens, and the pressure to accept a bad deal increases. That, of course, is the strategy.
Democrats have no incentive to resolve this quickly. A shutdown that hobbles DHS, delays ICE operations, and inconveniences millions of Americans is not a crisis for them. It's leverage. Every hour of misery at the airport, every news segment about unpaid federal workers, builds the political case for concessions that would weaken immigration enforcement.
On Wednesday, Reps. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, announced they were working on bipartisan legislation through the Problem Solvers Caucus to reopen DHS "while advancing commonsense reforms." The proposal would impose a slate of new requirements on federal law enforcement, including ICE. Suozzi and Fitzpatrick noted the legislation "would require that all federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE, are held to the same high standards and policies as it pertains to training requirements, the use of body cameras, independent investigation of use-of-force at scenes, clear outer identification of the agency engaged in the enforcement action, cooperation with local law enforcement, and a prohibition of masks during enforcement actions coupled with tougher penalties for doxxing."
Read that list carefully. Body cameras. Independent use-of-force investigations. Mandatory cooperation with local law enforcement, many of whom operate in sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE in the first place. This isn't reform. It's a bureaucratic straitjacket dressed up in bipartisan language.
The inclusion of "tougher penalties for doxxing" is a tell. It gestures at protecting officers while the rest of the proposal makes their jobs harder. ICE agents enforcing federal law against illegal immigrants don't need more paperwork. They need the government they work for to stay funded and operational.
It is unclear how much support the Problem Solvers bill will attract in the House, and there's a reason. The caucus exists to split the difference, but splitting the difference between enforcing the law and not enforcing it doesn't produce good policy. It produces theater.
Lawmakers leave for recess on March 30. If no deal is reached before then, the shutdown stretches into mid-April at minimum. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has joined Republicans in advancing the legislation, which tells you something about where the reasonable middle actually sits on this question. When even a Democrat from a blue state breaks ranks, the obstruction isn't principled. It's tactical.
The House has passed this funding bill three times. Four Democrats have voted for it each time. The Senate has a final offer on the table. At some point, the question stops being "Can they reach a deal?" and becomes "Do Senate Democrats want one?"
Forty-one days in, the answer speaks for itself.