Reporter’s Notebook: The hitchhiker’s guide to what’s next to end the DHS shutdown

When will the House vote on the Senate deal? Frankly, we do not know. Last night’s Senate measure was not pre-baked with the House. And we talked to dozens of House Republicans yesterday who did not want to just fund parts of DHS. They wanted to fund everything. 

We also don’t know the disposition of the president on this. When asked about a GOP proposal earlier this week to just fund parts of DHS and leave out ICE, President Donald Trump replied, “I’m pretty much not happy with it.”

DHS SHUTDOWN BREAKTHROUGH COMES AT COST FOR REPUBLICANS AS FUNDING FIGHTS NEARS END

And, if it is to pass the House, it’s about the math. Lawmakers will need a robust combination of Democrats and Republicans to approve this bill. Democrats failed to secure the bona fide reforms they wanted for ICE. So do liberals defect? This bipartisan parliamentary algebra will be exceedingly interesting.

In short, this was a jam job by the Senate. The Senate has left. Either the House takes the bill or leaves it.

In Congress, there are only so many exit ramps off the highway. The Senate saw one. There was the growing crisis at the airports. TSA workers were about to miss paychecks again. And that’s to say nothing of lawmakers — potentially being mired in Washington and missing their two-week-plus recess for Easter and Passover.

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The House could expedite the bill and pass it quickly via “suspension of the rules.” But that requires a two-thirds vote. A slightly longer process is the conventional track with bringing a rule to the floor to manage debate on the bill. But eventual passage of the bill only needs a simple majority.

Also, no one really “won” this shutdown. There are rarely winners from a shutdown. Yes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., may have scored some points from the liberal base by going to the mat over ICE following the Minnesota shootings. He needed to do that after caving and averting a government shutdown last March. That ignited a firestorm among liberals.

Also, the charge last night for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., was not to get support to pass the bill — but to secure guarantees from senators that they wouldn’t try to block it.

That’s partly why the Senate voted by voice vote. There is no specific record of any senator “voting” for the bill. The Senate ran a “hotline” last night, checking in with all 100 senators to make sure there were no objections to what Thune proposed doing. No one objected. And thus, the Senate passed the bill in the dead of night.