Senate moves funding minibus forward, but DHS fight clouds shutdown outlook

The Senate has taken a first step toward avoiding a government shutdown, but there is still a long way to go on an increasingly short path to keeping the lights on in Washington, DC.

Lawmakers advanced a three-bill, $174 billion package through its first procedural hurdle Monday night with a vote of 81-14, setting up a vote to send the tranche of funding bills, known as the minibus, to President Donald Trump’s desk later this week.

The package, which easily passed the House last week, also sailed through the key test vote thanks to a groundswell of bipartisan support — a sign that neither party wants to push the government into another shutdown just months after the longest shutdown in history.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., suggested Republicans could address Minnesota’s fraud scandal through budget reconciliation. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., noted that Senate Democrats were not seeking another shutdown last week and said “Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, through 2026.”

“We want to work in a bicameral, bipartisan way to get this done and the good news is our Republican appropriators are working with us,” Schumer told ABC Sunday morning.

While the successful procedural vote is a good sign for final passage of the package, it doesn’t mean lawmakers are completely off the hook when it comes to preventing another shutdown.

They have until January 30 to fund the rest of the government, and some in the Senate say they won’t have time to finish their work before the deadline. This means another continuing resolution (CR) will likely be considered.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said a short-term funding bill was inevitable.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, through 2026.” (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

He pointed out that so far the Senate has only passed three funding bills. If the latest package goes through, it would put lawmakers halfway through the dozen or so bills needed to avoid a shutdown.

“Of course there will be a CR in the short term,” Kennedy said. “There’s going to be a CR, it’s just a question of how big is the CR going to be?”

There is another, more modest funding package that could soon pass the House. But the $77 billion two-bill package including funding legislation for financial services and national security still won’t be enough to prevent a shutdown.

Notably, the package does not contain the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill, which was supposed to be included. The bill poses an ongoing headache for lawmakers and often acts as a lightning rod for political enmity.

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Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said he wants to see constraints built into the DHS bill regarding the Border Patrol. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

“The DHS bill is still one of the most difficult,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “And that creates more, it seems more like a sort of political conflict between all the appropriations bills.”

After the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minnesota last week, this political division has reached another level.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, argued that what happened to Good “crystallized for the American people the real danger that exists in the way ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] work.”

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Murphy suggested he would like to see constraints built into the DHS bill regarding CBP, such as increased agent training.

“I understand we need to get Republican votes,” Murphy said. “So I’m not proposing that we solve this overnight, but I think it should be clear to Republicans that if they want Democratic votes for a DHS appropriations bill, they’re going to have to work with us on our concerns. That’s how the Senate works.”