As DHS shutdown stretches on, negotiations take place with Congress out of town

Terry Gerton All right, this is a short week and both chambers are on recess. So let’s focus on last week. Last week we ran out of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, but not really. So, tell us where we actually are and what’s going on with the conversations.

Loren Duggan Homeland Security’s funding bill was the last of the 12 that hadn’t been finalized. It was operating under a two week continuing resolution and those two weeks came to an end without an agreement on any sort of restraints or restrictions on immigration enforcement. Without that, there wasn’t an agreement to move forward with more short-term funding, so like you said, there’s a partial shutdown for DHS. But it’s important to note that some of the things at issue here, immigration enforcement under ICE and CBP, still have funding because of that tax and spending law that was passed last year. They got a lot of money, a big infusion of cash, and they can still operate and pay their people under that. But with DHS, so much of their work is considered essential and the functions have to be continued, I think something like 90% of the workforce will stay on despite this shutdown or lapse in appropriations happening.

Terry Gerton Given that the big focus is on the operations and practices in ICE and Customs and Border Protection, and that they’re already funded, where do they think the shutdown is going to move to? Isn’t it maybe better to propose separate legislation that would deal with the issues at hand?

Loren Duggan I think they want to use the deadline, or they wanted to use the deadline that’s now in the past, to force this discussion and continue it. So there is still this lapse and there will come a point not too far into the future where people will not get their paychecks and there will perhaps be pressure to do something by then. The Democrats, in particular, in the House and the Senate have been pretty unified here about not wanting to move forward without some sort of arrangement with the administration to change some of these practices. Now, the lists that they traded back and forth didn’t get them close enough, but maybe either over this recess week or when they come back, they can chip away and come closer to some sort of agreement to reopen the department and do some restraining of these operations.

Terry Gerton So presumably, even though they’re not technically in session, some people are around to have these kinds of conversations. What’s really on the table and what might a deal look like?

Loren Duggan We’ll have to see, because one of the list of demands that the Democrats had was body cameras. And we saw some willingness from the administration to deploy those and use those in Minnesota and beyond. Something like masks and not allowing ICE agents to wear masks seems to be a little more controversial with Republicans pushing back and not wanting to have people doxed or have their identities revealed and perhaps used against them. So you can see where there’s a divide between those two. We’ll see what they can come up with that fits the bill. But the fact that the administration traded paper back, both an initial list of proposals and legislative tech, shows that they’re bargaining back and forth, they just didn’t get there quite yet. So we’ll see if what’s in that kind of range of activities that they’ll be able to go along with.

Terry Gerton Now, a couple of weeks ago, we were hearing that there might be a move to break out some of the other sub-agencies in DHS and figure out a way to appropriate funding for them. Is that an opportunity to move forward?

Loren Duggan That is an option that didn’t seem to gain much traction. Several Democrats were pushing that because, like we said, ICE and CBP has this funding out there, but the Coast Guard, FEMA, CISA, and other parts of the department won’t. Maybe that’s an arrangement they could look at later, or if they want to keep it all together to keep the pressure going, we’ll have to see. That didn’t certainly catch fire, nor did another two-week or four-week CR before they left last week. So nothing that was short of a full package was really gaining traction.

Terry Gerton Well, there is an interesting calendar intersection here. Members of Congress get back into town on the 23rd of February and the president’s State of the Union is currently scheduled for the 24th. Lots of conversation about how that might play out. What are you hearing?

Loren Duggan Well, I think that the State of the Union looks likely to go on right now. The House before it left adopted this concurrent resolution setting up the State of the Union. Senate needs to do that when they come back, but all signs point toward them moving forward with that address so that the president can come, and maybe that’ll be the time for him to announce some of his perspective there on what he wants to see happen, or perhaps tell them to reopen DHS, it’s too important to keep it closed. So we could have a situation where the shutdown is persisting while the president is talking there.

Terry Gerton A little bit of last-minute drama since the last time the two were scheduled simultaneously, the shutdown sort of won out and they delayed the State of the Union.

Loren Duggan That could be a way they would look at it, so we’ll see. But for right now, we still have the 24th on our calendar for that important address.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan. He’s deputy news director for Bloomberg Government. Well, Loren, let’s move on from funding issues and talk about the Save America Act. It passed the House just before they went on recess. What are you hearing about this approach to voter identification?

Loren Duggan Well, this has been a pretty party-line issue. This particular bill was once the SAVE Act. They added a voter ID provision to it and now call it SAVE America. And that has been sent over to the Senate. There are members of the House and members of the Senate who want to use this as an opportunity to challenge the filibuster rule in the Senate, the thing that requires, most cases, 60 votes to move forward. They’re saying, well, that’s the rules, but if you’re going to filibuster, you actually have to stand on the floor and take up time and actually do the physical exertion of slowing down this legislation. That hasn’t caught on with all Republicans, including John Thune, the majority leader who said that might be too much time on the floor and he’s reluctant to do that. But you will see pressure building to do something on that vote in the Senate, because there’s also the president who wants the bill and has said, if I don’t get the bill, I’m going to try and do it by executive order. So, there’s a lot of dynamics here with pushing that voter ID portion of the SAVE Act or the SAVE America Act as it’s been re-billed, and we’ll see what happens with that when they get back.

Terry Gerton Given the federalized nature of elections, is that really something the president can do via executive order?

Loren Duggan I think that would be challenged pretty quickly. There are some things that executive orders have been used for in voting. There is primarily a state administration of those elections, but he has talked about nationalizing it, and there are obviously federal statutes that apply to voting. But we’ll see if an executive order is going to be enough or if you would really need legislation. And then there’s hurdles to that legislation as it now stands.

Terry Gerton Well, that’ll certainly be something to watch. And the other topic I wanted us to chat about today was foreign affairs. And sometimes we do that. Many of the members of Congress were at the Munich Security Conference last weekend. There was a lot said. Interested how you think it’s going to play out.

Loren Duggan That was one of the questions: Would they actually leave town to go to Munich? Would it be harder to get there if part of the government was shut down? But many members made their way over there and talked both in main sessions and around about their perspective on foreign policy. We saw Gavin Newsom over there as well, the California governor who’s taken some steps outside of the administration to show that California is a willing partner if the Trump administration isn’t. So even if we weren’t always being talked about to our faces there, I know that there were chatter among other nations as well. I think everyone’s trying to figure out what foreign policy and global policy looks like right now. And several members had platforms, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democratic House member who had a pretty big platform there with a couple of different appearances. So an interesting moment on the world stage for some of these members of Congress.

Terry Gerton And along those lines, the House passed a resolution opposed to the president’s tariffs on Canada.

Loren Duggan That’s right. That was the first chance the House had to vote on that. They had a procedural blockage for most of this Congress, not allowing votes on those. But a bipartisan group overcame that. And then another bipartisan group voted to adopt that resolution blocking the Canadian tariffs. I think we’ll probably see votes on Mexico and other countries as well as time goes on. And we’ll see if that gets through the Senate as well. But right now the majorities aren’t big enough to avoid a veto from the president, who would undoubtedly veto any such measure if it reached his desk.