Where things stand with the government shutdown this week

The House and Senate will vote on vastly different bills this week, and there’s still no real deal in sight.

The Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House are going in completely different directions on bills to reopen the government this week, with each chamber hoping to pressure the opposing side as the government shutdown enters its second month.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold a vote as soon as Thursday on a bill that President Donald Trump pushed this weekend. This proposal includes Trump’s desired $5.7 billion for his border wall, as well as three-year extensions for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status programs, two legal immigration programs Trump has started to dissolve.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are holding a vote on another six-bill spending package, which has their version of a concession: an additional $1 billion for border-related efforts that would beef up existing infrastructure and fund more immigration judges rather than provide money for Trump’s wall. Democrats hope this sweetener will prompt some movement in the Senate, but without border wall funding, McConnell probably won’t bite.

The Senate’s bill seems to be destined for failure, and unlikely to earn the 60 votes needed for passage. It’s not expected to draw many moderate Democrats and may not even earn the support of all Republicans in the chamber. But Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) thinks it could ultimately serve as a starting point for debate and allow Republicans to argue that they’re taking action to end the shutdown. And even if it were to pass the Senate, it’s certainly dead on arrival in the House. Democrats announced their opposition to Trump’s offer even before it was officially announced this weekend.

The House has so far sent nine bills to reopen the government to the Senate, and McConnell has brought none to the floor.

There’s still no compromise in sight, but a sense of urgency caused by government workers’ missed paychecks is causing both sides to start offering concessions.

What’s happening in the Senate

McConnell, who has largely been on the sidelines during the shutdown fight, is finally breaking his silence to back the proposal that Trump introduced this past weekend. “Everyone has made their point — now it’s time to make a law,” he said in a Saturday statement. “I intend to move to this legislation this week. With bipartisan cooperation, the Senate can send a bill to the House quickly so that they can take action as well.”

Senate Republicans unveiled the 1,300-page draft bill, dubbed the “End the Shutdown and Secure the Border Act,” early this week. In addition to the border security demands levied by Trump, it also includes more than $12 billion for natural disaster funding as well as an extension of funds for the Violence Against Women Act.

McConnell has emphasized repeatedly that he wouldn’t take up any bill that doesn’t have Trump’s support and used this rationale as his reasoning for rejecting numerous House bills that would have reopened the government. Previously, he had also said he wasn’t interested in taking “show votes” on legislation that doesn’t have a chance of passing the Senate, which makes his decision to take up Trump’s bill somewhat confusing.

Any spending bill will require 60 votes to pass the Senate, and while Republicans have a 53-47 majority, they would still need seven Democrats to peel off in order to get it through. As things currently stand, there’s no indication that seven moderate Democrats would join with Republicans to approve the bill in its current form, meaning its vote will likely fail.

What’s more, it’s possible that the measure wouldn’t even get the full support of the Republican conference, since some conservative lawmakers have opposed previous Trump administration attempts to trade a DACA fix for a boost in wall funding.

As Lankford indicated, however, the point of taking up the “straw man” proposal isn’t so much to pass the existing version as it is to start a conversation about a new one that could hopefully secure some bipartisan backing.

Ultimately, Trump’s introduction of the proposal, and McConnell’s support for it, is intended to demonstrate Republicans’ willingness to make an offer and push Democrats to come to the table.

What’s happening in the House

House Democrats are well prepared to defend their side in this optics battle. They’re also offering concessions, including a boost to border security-related funding, even as they oppose any funding for Trump’s border wall.

In the past few weeks, Democrats in the House have voted on nine proposals to reopen the government. Their consistent message is, “Ropen the government, and then let’s talk border security,” and these bills reflect that. There have been bills to either reopen every government agency except the Department of Homeland Security or fully reopen every closed government agency but keep DHS at current funding levels.

But Democrats are starting to add more money for border-related items in the hopes of signaling their openness to compromise. House Democrats are planning to add $1 billion more in total spending to various agency budgets in a six-bill package they will vote on this week. This money wouldn’t be used for a wall or physical barrier at the border; it would be dedicated for boosting infrastructure at existing ports of entry and increasing the number of immigration judges who can process migrants’ cases.

The New York Times’s Julie Hirschfeld Davis reports that Democrats are also considering a new funding bill for DHS that would increase the number of department personnel like border agents, as well as scanning technology that would help agents screen for drugs coming across the border. Current level funding for DHS is set at $1.3 billion; it’s unclear how much this potential new bill would add.

Despite the picture Trump and White House officials routinely paint about drugs coming across the open border, the vast amount of illegal drugs, including 90 percent of heroin, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl, came through ports of entry in 2018, according to statistics from US Customs and Border Protection.

Up to this point, Democrats’ messaging has largely been around what they are opposed to. Now they are trying to show which border security measures they could actually support.

Still, as we head toward yet another Friday pay period for government employees who are either furloughed or working without pay, we are nowhere near a deal.