’Democrats caved’ by ending shutdown
But path now open to immigration bill: Schumer
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government shutdown is over after three days, and for many Democrats, it couldn’t end soon enough.
The impasse exposed the Democrats’ limits on how far they were willing to go with the fight, at the risk of looking beholden to one part of their base — activists pushing to allow the so-called dreamers to stay in the U.S. legally.
At the same time, the debate exacerbated bitter differences within the Republican Party that may prevent Congress and President Donald Trump from reaching a long-term deal on immigration, even though Trump himself has signalled many times that he’s open to one.
The Senate voted 81 to 18 to fund the government until Feb 8, allowing hundreds of thousands of federal workers to get back to work Tuesday.
What both parties did was effectively punt the issue for three weeks, long enough to get past Trump’s State of the Union address on Jan. 30.
What they didn’t do was come anywhere close to a deal that would actually cement immigration changes into law.
Even the commitment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to open an immigration debate fell far short of what some Democrats wanted, an ironclad promise for a fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program in coming weeks.
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried to put the best face on the outcome, saying on the Senate floor Monday that “now, there is a real pathway” to get a bill protecting the dreamers through the Senate.
But with the government shut and the White House employing a talk-to-the-hand strategy, Democrats settled for a statement from McConnell that he intended to bring an immigration bill to the floor for debate — but made no promise about its contents.
Senate Democrats “caved. They blinked. That’s what they do,” Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said in an interview. “It’s unfortunate.”
Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter of New York said she was baffled as to why Schumer didn’t say the government shutdown was McConnell’s fault since he’s responsible for getting the votes. “We’re taking a great hit,” Slaughter said. “Totally unjustified. And our people just seem to take it flat-footed.”
The fact that enough Democrats still voted to end the shutdown suggests they were starting to feel the political heat put on by the White House.
McConnell did firm up his offer slightly on Monday by agreeing to bring a bill to the Senate floor with a fair amendment process. Democrats also won one other concession — the immigration debate won’t be contingent on Trump’s blessing, something that moderate Republicans embraced as a breakthrough.
Even so, McConnell has said all along he wants to act before the March 5 deadline for the end of DACA, which grants protections for 690,000 young immigrants. And there’s still no guarantee something acceptable to Democrats will be embraced by the GOP leadership, by the House, or by Trump by then, all of whom have been negotiating the issue for months.
While Republican leaders and the White House were largely united on the shutdown fight itself, they remain deeply divided internally on immigration.