Senate Democrats relinquished on the government shutdown Monday, agreeing to vote to reopen the government but insisting they’ll keep fighting for illegal immigrant “Dreamers” over the next weeks, with another shutdown deadline looming Feb. 8.Read more here.
“I’m glad we’ve gotten past that,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said just ahead of a vote.
The vote to end the filibuster was 81-18, clearing the way for passage of the stopgap spending bill.
The House was expected to pass the bill later Monday, which would end the shutdown after three days.
The breakthrough came after Mr. McConnell said he would allow the Senate to conduct a freewheeling immigration debate in February, unless they come to a deal before then on how to handle the Dreamers.
Democrats touted that procedural commitment as a major victory, predicting they’ll emerge victorious from that immigration debate.
“The Republican majority now has 17 days to prevent the Dreamers from being deported,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, who had led the Friday filibuster that created the shutdown, but said Monday he was flipping his vote and would now support reopening the government.
Republicans said they had always intended to have an immigration discussion, though Mr. McConnell’s promise of a full floor debate is perhaps more than the GOP had originally been willing to concede. Senators pushing the debate said it’s a signal that President Trump has lost negotiating powers, and the Senate may pass a bill he disagrees with.
He said the debate would commence with a neutral bill and an open amendment process that allows every side of the debate to help craft the legislation.
The process thrilled the bipartisan group of about 20 senators led by Sen. Susan Collins, who helped broker the end of the shutdown.
“The outcome is not preordained,” said Ms. Collins, Maine Republican.
Ahead of the vote, Mr. Schumer continued to blame Mr. Trump for the shutdown, in a strident speech that seemed to anger some of the deal-makers he’ll need going forward.
“Please stop,” Ms. Collins said quietly to colleagues on the floor as Mr. Schumer harangued Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell.
“If we learned anything during this process, it’s that a strategy to shut down the federal government over the issue of illegal immigration is something the American people did not understand,” Mr. McConnell said.
His deputy, Majority Whip John Cornyn, was more blunt on Democrats’ strategy: “I think people realize this is really a dumb move.”
“They’ve got no exit strategy,” he said just before the vote. “They have no plan. You really need to ask yourself how does this end, and they really can’t answer that question. They can’t get what they want. They’ve taken a hostage they can’t shoot.”
Democrats did manage to limit the pain from the shutdown, most of which came over a weekend when the effects were muted. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers were furloughed Monday but will be back on the job soon.
Despite their leaders’ deal, many Democrats voted to keep the shutdown going anyway, saying they had wanted to see an immediate deal for the Dreamers.
Those holdouts were cheered by immigrant-rights advocates, who’d pressured Democrats to block government funding until Dreamers get legal status.
“It’s really important Democrats continue to show the backbone they’ve shown to date to ensure this high-stakes move results in bipartisan breakthroughs,” Frank Sharry, executive director at America’s Voice, a leading immigrant-rights group, said Monday morning, before the vote.
The three-day shutdown is far less than the last go-around, when the GOP led a 16-day shutdown over Obamacare. But it does complicate Democrats’ argument in recent years that the GOP was the party of shutdowns.
Ace of Spades responded,
Democrats Give Up on Shutdown; Vote for Cloture on CR Passes, Setting Up Vote to Re-Open Government
—Ace
The CR will keep the government open just for two and a half weeks, until February 8th.
McConnell offered them his personal commitment that they'd vote on a DACA bill in the meantime, but they say that Republicans already made that offer. And also note there's no guarantee that bill will pass, or what the bill will actually say.
Oh, in the meantime, Schumer has been claiming he offered a grand compromise to the president and the GOP, offering to support authorization for the wall.
That's a con. The wall was authorized in 2006; what is lacking is appropriations for money to actually build it. So Schumer has been claiming he's "compromising" by offering to authorized that which was authorized going on 12 years now. While continuing to not offer what is actually needed, money.
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