Congress Is Gridlocked On Negotiations To Avoid A Government Shutdown

When the Senate approved a similar short-term spending bill in December, 17 Democrats plus ME independent Angus King voted to keep the government open.

Congressional Democrats, hoping for a vote tsunami in midterm elections this fall, are being driven on by a raging anti-Trump grassroots voting base as they seek to shield almost 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children.

The restive House Freedom Caucus made a bid Tuesday to have a full-year defense spending bill inserted into the stopgap but appeared to be rebuffed.

Democrats want the spending bill to include protects for “Dreamers” – mostly Hispanic young adults brought to the United States illegally when they were children.

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday dug in on their threats to reject any government funding bill that isn’t paired with protection for thousands of young immigrants – a hard-line stance celebrated by liberal groups who have shrugged off risks of a government shutdown. As a sweetener for Democrats, it would reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, for another six years.

But his tactic isn’t working, and according to a new poll out Tuesday, Americans will blame Trump and the Republican Party should Congress and the president fail to fund the government past the Friday-night deadline.

Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that he rejected a bipartisan Senate deal on immigration last week negotiated by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin because it took him “30 seconds” to realize it was a “horrible” deal.

“For the Dreamers who are losing their protective status every day, there needs to be a solution now, not kicking the can down the road yet again”, said Democratic Conn. Sen.

“None of us like to be in this position”, said Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, who cited a lot of “grumbling” during the meeting.

It seems certain that no immigration accord will be reached this week, in time to affect the outcome on the vote on the separate bill preventing a federal shutdown.

Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate and most legislation requires 60 votes for passage. If the Trump administration manages the shutdown with any level of political competence, the pressure will build for at least a temporary deal – and Democrats refusing to budge even on a temporary bill when they’ve won a major concession is not going to look good when people’s salaries stop getting deposited into their bank accounts.

While some Senate Democrats have threatened to vote against a budget bill that does not include an immigration deal, Trump said he believed such an agreement remained possible. Schumer said that in his caucus, “the revulsion toward that bill is broad and strong”.

Then there are Democrats who scent a chance to stand firm on immigration to woo 2020 primary voters, who will pick who will duel an apparently weakened President for the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has previously said he wants to keep funding and immigration bills separate.

Negotiations between a bipartisan Senate group and the White House broke down last week in an acrimonious meeting at which Trump reportedly expressed his preference for immigrants from Norway over those who hail from Haiti and African nations.

Democrats meanwhile are arguing that with a bipartisan immigration deal finished, Republicans should at the very least put it on the floor to avoid a shut down. The media reports that Republicans will get blamed more in a shutdown, and that may be true, but the White House will control the circumstances of a shutdown.