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| Shutdown ends, shifting focus to next spending bill, ‘dreamers’ |
President Trump signed a short-term spending bill to fund the government through Feb. 8 after it passed the Senate and House on the strength of a statement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he would address the status of young immigrants called “dreamers” who were brought to this country illegally as children. Thirty-three Senate Democrats joined 48 Republicans to break the impasse.
- A bipartisan group of senators formed this weekend to try to move talks forward and encourage leadership to speak to each other. The talks were led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who literally made senators use a talking stick so no one interrupted each other. [BuzzFeed / Emma Loop]
The shutdown exposed the challenges facing congressional Democrats daily: how to wrangle victories while in the minority and keep the party’s base energized ahead of the November elections.
The Resistance will struggle when it tries to replicate the tactics of the tea party movement. The left learned with its failed shutdown gambit that it cannot beat President Trump by copying the same playbook that the right used against Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Many Republicans think the federal government isn’t just a problem, but a leviathan that needs to be slayed. Democrats, in contrast, believe that government is a force for good, and party leaders see it as their solemn duty to deliver services. They see themselves as “afflicted,” as Hillary Clinton likes to say, “with the responsibility gene.”
That’s partly why it took Republicans two weeks to cave when they shut down the federal government in 2013,
President Trump at the White House Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It was an out-of-character role for a president used to commanding and demanding center stage: seen but not publicly heard outside the confines of his team’s highly-controlled communications operation.
Keeping the president as contained as possible and largely hidden from view deprived Democrats of the bogeyman they expected when they decided to force the shutdown.
As negotiations stalled Friday night, McConnell called Trump and told him he should prepare for a shutdown. “Trump, ever eager for a deal, responded by asking who else he should call and suggested he dial Democrats or try [Schumer] again,” Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey report. “But McConnell urged the president to sit tight and make the Democrats come to them … Trump paused, agreed, and then offered McConnell his highest praise: ‘You are a good negotiator.’ … Over the weekend, aides like [Mick] Mulvaney, [John] Kelly and [Marc] Short warned Trump to stay out of the fight and let it play out on Capitol Hill. … McConnell and [Ryan] also believed that the Democrats were in a politically tricky position, and called Trump multiple times to ensure he remained locked into the approach … Trump told advisers on several occasions he was listening — even if his instincts were to do otherwise…
Democratic senators believe that a Senate immigration bill passing with a significant bipartisan majority would ultimately force House Republicans to capitulate on the issue. But House conservatives won’t be easy to sway, and the president remains a true wild card.
The deal that reopened the government did nothing to ensure the House will act on a bill that the Senate passes, and conservatives aligned with the Freedom Caucus predicted that the bipartisan proposals currently being considered would be dead on arrival in their chamber.
“House Republicans, meanwhile, are entertaining much more restrictive legislation that would grant legal status only to those who applied for and received DACA protections,” Mike DeBonis reports. “In addition, the bill sponsored by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Labrador would reduce the number of authorized legal immigrants by roughly 25 percent — about 260,000 a year — while also authorizing border-wall construction, funding 10,000 new Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officers, and mandating employers use the federal ‘E-Verify' system to screen employees for immigration status. The legislation also would crack down on ‘sanctuary cities’ that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
“Any one of those provisions represents a deal-killer for Democrats — as well as for many Republicans,” DeBonis notes.
Bipartisan talks among House members have produced a bill sponsored by Reps. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) that would take a much narrower approach to protecting dreamers and could ultimately get Democrats on board. But under pressure from their conservative ranks, House Republican leaders have shown little enthusiasm for the bill.”
As a congressman, Paul Ryan agitated for a bipartisan immigration deal. To become speaker, he pledged that he’d only bring an immigration bill to the floor if a majority of GOP lawmakers would vote for it. That’s the so-called Hastert Rule.
For now, he’s trying to thread the needle. “We don’t want to kick kids out,” he said on Fox News yesterday. “But … we don’t want to say to people in other countries, ‘Oh, get yourself to America illegally because sooner or later you will get legalized.’ We need to make sure that we control immigration.”
House leaders said they’re still acting as if the deadline to deal with DACA is March 6, which is when Trump announced last year that he would end the program.
Hoping for a Bargain in a Swift Surrender
By CARL HULSE
The fierce backlash underscored the challenge confronting Mr. Schumer and more centrist Democrats as they attempt to negotiate with Republicans and President Trump to reach an agreement on immigration without alienating the more liberal factions of a party that has moved distinctly to the left. Their balancing act reflects the broader tension in the party as it tries to reconcile the fervor of blue-state opponents of Mr. Trump and the caution of Democrats in states where they must appeal to Trump supporters.
Democrats need to protect 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states carried by the president and appeal to the swing voters who could flip control of the House. Those vulnerable Senate Democrats were key to sparking the bipartisan drive to bring the shutdown to an end. Yet many of the Senate Democrats considered potential 2020 presidential candidates voted to keep the shutdown going.
Heading into the showdown, Mr. Schumer and other top Democrats figured that Mr. Trump was at a vulnerable moment, given the uproar surrounding racially charged comments made in a recent meeting with senators to discuss immigration, disturbing words that came on top of persistent accounts of Oval Office chaos.
And they saw the so-called Dreamers — the young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children — as a particularly appealing group, as they faced deportation to countries they barely knew through no wrongdoing of their own. Polling consistently finds deep American sympathy for those immigrants, and under intense pressure from the left to stand tough, Democrats hoped the public would embrace the use of all possible measures to help them.
But over the course of the weekend, Democrats increasingly came to realize they had maneuvered themselves into a difficult position that made many of the party’s moderate senators uncomfortable. Republicans were not distancing themselves from the president despite his erratic swings on immigration policy. And while the Dreamers may be a highly sympathetic group, using them as a rationale for shuttering the federal government was not playing well.
The president, top Republicans and their allies had some success in framing the showdown as a case of Democrats putting the interests of “illegal immigrants” ahead of American citizens, a line of attack Democrats felt they could not weather.
“Voters in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were getting Republican robo-calls saying Democrats had ‘prioritized illegal immigrants over American citizens,’” Robert Costa, Erica Werner and Karen Tumulty report. “Polls consistently show that a large majority of the public is sympathetic to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of (dreamers) … But what the Democratic senators were sensing was something else that shows up in the polls: Most voters do not want to see the government shut down over immigration. And the causes that are articles of faith with the Democrats’ liberal and ethnically diverse base can alienate many voters in conservative, largely white battleground states.
“Voters in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were getting Republican robo-calls saying Democrats had ‘prioritized illegal immigrants over American citizens,’” Robert Costa, Erica Werner and Karen Tumulty report. “Polls consistently show that a large majority of the public is sympathetic to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of (dreamers) … But what the Democratic senators were sensing was something else that shows up in the polls: Most voters do not want to see the government shut down over immigration. And the causes that are articles of faith with the Democrats’ liberal and ethnically diverse base can alienate many voters in conservative, largely white battleground states.
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In relenting so rapidly, Democrats saw some tangible benefits. They managed to highlight the plight of the Dreamers while avoiding a prolonged shutdown that could have ultimately damaged their cause. And by conceding defeat on Monday, Democrats avoided widespread disruptions in government operations that would have cascaded during the week and beyond.
They also won the pledge from Mr. McConnell to allow broad bipartisan negotiations on immigration, overall spending, health programs and other unresolved issues. If those fail to produce an agreement by Feb. 8, he promised to open an immigration debate on the Senate floor. Senators on both sides of the aisle saw that as a breakthrough that could provide a chance for the polarized chamber to engage in what has become a rare occurrence: actual legislating.
What they do not have is any certainty that Mr. Trump will back whatever legislation the Senate produces or that the House will even consider it.
The agreement to end the shutdown came after weekend negotiations among a bipartisan group of about two dozen lawmakers assembled by Mr. Manchin and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. Members of the group all saw the shutdown as unacceptable and contributing to public disgust with Washington, motivating them to pursue a solution outside the chamber’s leadership.
They say they are intent on finding a way to protect the immigrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program as well as fashioning a “global” agreement on spending, disaster aid and a variety of other issues that have defied resolution.
Republican participation in the bipartisan group was crucial for Democrats seeking assurances from Mr. McConnell on the way forward. While they were nervous about accepting the word of Mr. McConnell given their history of clashes with him, they doubted that he would undercut such a substantial number of his fellow Republicans.
“I expect the majority leader to fulfill his commitment to the Senate, to me and to the bipartisan group and abide by this agreement,” Mr. Schumer said. “If he does not, of course — and I expect he will — he will have breached the trust of not only the Democratic senators, but members of his own party as well.”
Still, immigration activists found fault with putting any faith in Mr. McConnell. And they noted that even if the Senate can draft a measure that attracts a broad majority, it faces a steep test in the House, which ignored a 2013 Senate immigration measure that passed with 68 votes.
Negotiations will now begin with Democrats in a new posture. During a Friday meeting with Mr. Trump aimed at settling the dispute, Mr. Schumer said Democrats would agree to provide significant funding for the wall along the Mexican border that Mr. Trump has made a central and symbolic element of his agenda. They had previously opposed any funding for the wall.
While Democrats gave that ground, they are not without weapons. Should the negotiations collapse, they will be able to pound Republicans for abandoning the Dreamers. They could also vote again to shutter the government, though that seems unlikely after this episode.
EZRA KLEIN, VOX
1)Consider what we don’t know about what comes next. We don’t know which immigration bill, or bills, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring to the Senate floor. We don’t know if any immigration compromise passes the Senate. We don’t know if an immigration bill that passes the Senate will get a vote in the House. Even if it does get a vote in the House, we don’t know if it’ll pass. And if it does pass, we don’t know if Trump will sign it.
2) We also don’t know what the implicit Democratic position is here. If Democrats get a fair vote in the House and Senate on an immigration deal and it doesn’t pass, will they shut down the government again in three weeks? Put differently, is this a deal about a fair process or about a particular outcome? If Democrats don’t get a deal and they shut the government back down in three weeks, it’s hard to see what was lost here.
3) Democratic opponents of the deal believe that an extended shutdown increases the likelihood of a DREAMer compromise. But does it? That is to say that an extended shutdown will cause Trump so much political or personal pain that he will accept one of the immigration compromises he has thus far rejected. Neither dynamic is obvious to me.
4) Politically, Trump’s entire brand is anti-immigration politics, and if there is round-the-clock news coverage of a shutdown over immigration, he’ll think it’s good for his base. Personally, Trump’s goal in life is to be seen as a winner, and to double down when attacked or under pressure, and so it’s hard to see how a high-stakes battle over a shutdown — which would make a deal on immigration look like a cave to reopen the government by Trump — helps.
5) Beyond that, shutting down the government should be a last resort in the most extreme situations (if that). And historically, shutting down the government usually doesn’t end with the party that forced the shutdown getting the policy concessions it wants — it often strengthens the president’s party. To the extent there’s an open path in which an immigration deal can be negotiated and brought to a vote with the government still open, that’s a good thing.
POLITICO
California’s two Democratic senators could barely contain their anger after Chuck Schumer cut a deal with Mitch McConnell to reopen the government on Monday — and deal later with the 200,000 Dreamers in their state facing deportation.
“I’m disappointed with a conversation that suggests a false choice: You either fund the government or you take care of these … kids. We can do both,” Sen. Kamala Harris fumed. It would be “foolhardy” to trust McConnell, she said of the majority leader’s promise to take up an immigration bill in the coming weeks.
The Democratic strategy going in was to use their leverage in the government funding fight to help Dreamers, lamented Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had expressed grave misgivings about a shutdown days earlier.
“I trust that because the leadership did it this way, that they must know something I don’t,” she said.
The turn of events Monday marked the most serious cracks in the unity Schumer has painstakingly built within his caucus since he became Democratic leader a year ago. After holding almost all Democrats together through fights over the Supreme Court, health care, taxes and even Friday’s vote that shut down the government, Schumer is now under attack from the left and confronting pointed criticism of his negotiating skill.
His performance resulted in a Democratic-led shutdown — and an agreement with McConnell that provided no guarantee of a new immigration law. But multiple Democratic senators and aides told POLITICO in the aftermath that it might have been Schumer's only way out: He couldn’t go against the bulk of his left-leaning caucus in fighting for DACA recipients. But he also could not allow the shutdown to drag on for so long that it began hurting his vulnerable incumbents.
“That’s where a majority of caucus was going. So he represented his caucus,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who voted with Republicans on the roll call that shut down the government on Saturday morning.
No Democratic senator suggested that Schumer’s leadership is under any threat after his agreement with McConnell to fund the government through Feb. 8. ...But progressive senators were visibly miffed by what their leader had just done, even if they did not publicly go after him.----
But liberal groups were furious, threatening in a conference call with progressive senators on Monday to spend money against Schumer and his vulnerable incumbents this fall, according to a person on the call. Those groups put out barbed statements, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee casting Schumer and supporters of his deal as “weak-kneed."
“It’s Schumer’s job to lead and keep his caucus together to fight for progressive values, and he didn’t do it,” said Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the activist group Indivisible.
[But] after reviewing polls and the Senate map this year — 10 Democrats face reelection in states that Trump won — McConnell concluded a lengthy shutdown would hurt Democrats more than Republicans, according to a Republican aide. Likewise, the Democratic Caucus began sensing quickly that a long shutdown over immigration would begin damaging the sympathetic public view of Dreamers, a Democratic aide said.
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But the one hang-up for Democrats was McConnell. Citing a stalled commitment he made years ago to take up a bill to revive the Export-Import Bank and vague recent statements on immigration, Democrats regard McConnell as untrustworthy. They believe he prefers to legislate through partisan broadsides instead of finding common ground.
But the emergence of the moderate group's Republican members — and their private pledges to work together on immigration — was enough to push 33 Democrats across the finish line in support of Schumer, including his entire leadership team.
-- A new cliff now looms in 16 days. In addition to immigration, both parties and both chambers still need to hash out a deal on military and domestic spending.- Jennifer Rubin: “It is unlikely to matter by the midterms. Especially during the Trump era, the sheer volume of news cycles between now and then should make this a distant memory. (If you recall, the GOP staged and lost a government shutdown in 2013, and then won big in 2014.)”