Senate Democrats are cautiously optimistic about a potential agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But it’s far from a done deal.
As negotiations ramp up on Capitol Hill to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Senate Democrats seem to be clinging to a particular word: reforms.
It was a term party leaders used in the context of Immigration and Customs Enforcement nearly two dozen times during a March 24 news conference.
The refrain threw cold water on a new GOP compromise to fund the critical agency — minus ICE’s enforcement and removal operations — and end a crisis that has upended air travel across the country.
“Democrats are continuing to push for modest reforms,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that.”
Both parties refuse to remove the limit because once one of them does, the other has no excuse not to. The GOP knows that they can basically get whatever they want in budget reconciliation (the one bill a year that ignores the filibuster) and the Dems know that if they actually start passing laws people will expect them to improve their material conditions. So it remains a useful fiction for both of them.