Senate passes funding deal, sends to House for final approval

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

The U.S. Senate sent a $1.2 trillion government funding package back to the House for approval Friday night, ensuring a partial government shutdown over the weekend.

The package includes five of the six remaining appropriations bills – funding State-Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, and Transportation-HUD – and a short-term Continuing Resolution in place of the Homeland Security bill. 

The stopgap will freeze DHS funding at current levels for the next two weeks, during which time lawmakers will restructure the Homeland Security bill to add some Democrats’ policy demands.

“The agreement we reached today did precisely what Democrats wanted,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters after the vote.

The funding compromise resulted from negotiations among party leaders, as well as President Donald Trump directly negotiating with Schumer. 

In exchange for securing enough Democratic votes to advance the majority of the remaining appropriations bills, Republicans agreed to include new restrictions on immigration enforcement agents in the Homeland Security bill.

Those could include barring agents from wearing masks, requiring body-worn cameras, and implementing stricter warrant requirements, among other changes.

Many Republicans in both the House and Senate disapproved of the deal and vowed to vote against legislation that overhauls Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Chamber leaders had originally considered passing the five appropriations bills separately from the CR and sending them to Trump's desk immediately, but ended up bundling them together for a greater chance of the funding stopgap passing the House.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., voted for the package but said he was "disturbed that Republicans are negotiating with Democrats on so-called ‘reforms’ to ICE.”

“In two weeks, I will vote against any ‘reforms’ that keep ICE agents from doing their jobs and deporting criminals,” he added.