The Senate on Thursday is expected to kill two bills aimed at ending the government shutdown and send everyone back to the drawing board on how to reopen parts of the federal bureaucracy that have been shuttered for five weeks.
But the votes could see some senators buck their party leaders and vote for the opposing party’s plan, which will give some sense of whether either side is wavering in a battle that has led to the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
The Democratic bill up for a vote would temporarily reopen the government, which would give federal workers some reprieve for the five weeks of pay they’ve missed. No Republican has said they’d support the Democratic bill, but it could still win votes from some GOP senators, which might be read as a sign that Trump’s party is growing impatient with the shutdown.
Several Republicans wrote a letter last week asking President Trump to agree to reopen the government in exchange for a promise that the Senate would consider border security legislation that includes wall funding.
Republicans involved in that effort could end up voting for the Democratic bill, but will fall short of the 13 GOP senators needed to advance it. They included Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Collins spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday in favor of Trump’s proposal, but has also said she would vote for the Democratic measure as well in a bid to end the shutdown.
“This legislative package avoids the chicken and the egg dilemma of whether we should reopen government first or whether border security measures should be considered first,” Collins said of the GOP proposal Wednesday.
On the other side, Democrats seem to be almost uniformly opposed to a GOP proposal based on President Trump’s plan to end the stalemate. The bill would boost border wall funding by $5.7 billion, in exchange for an extension of legal protections for “Dreamers” and language allowing migrants with Temporary Protected Status to stay in the country.
Republicans would need seven Democrats to cross the aisle and vote with them on the border wall measure. But so far, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is the only Democrat to suggest he might consider voting for it.
Beyond reading the tea leaves of how a few defectors vote, the bills are otherwise expected to land with a thud on the Senate floor. Both will require 60 votes to advance to a final vote, and the broad partisan opposition to each means neither is likely to make it past that hurdle.
Even if the Democratic bill could pass the Senate and then the House, it faces a veto from President Trump, who on Wednesday made it clear he still won’t vote for any bill that doesn’t include funding for the border wall.
Wednesday morning, Trump was trying out a new slogan on Twitter in support of the wall: “BUILD THE WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!”
BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2019
Getting around Trump’s veto would require a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate.
