Senate returns with standoff, new faces
WASHINGTON — There will be two fresh Senate faces and some familiar but stubborn clashes facing lawmakers today as Congress begins its 2018 session staring at the year’s first potential calamity: an election-year government shutdown unless there’s a bipartisan spending pact by Jan. 19.
Looking to prevent a closure of federal agencies, top White House officials plan to meet at the Capitol today with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and each chamber’s top Democrat.
Their goal is to find a compromise on raising limits on defense and domestic spending that eluded lawmakers before they left Washington for the holidays. In a statement Tuesday, White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump wants a two-year pact “that provides realistic budget caps and provides certainty for our national security,” suggesting he was open to a bargain.
In one complication, Democrats have linked closure on the budget to protecting from deportation hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.
Parachuting into all this is a Democratic duo whose Senate arrivals are extraordinary.
Alabama’s Doug Jones narrowly upended Roy Moore, a polarizing Republican, in a special election last month to become the first Senate Democrat in a quarter-century from one of the nation’s reddest states. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith will replace Democrat Al Franken, the former TV comedian who was becoming one of his party’s most familiar liberal voices but resigned after a succession of sexual harassment accusations.
His last day in Congress was Tuesday.
Both new lawmakers will be sworn into office when the Senate gavels into session today. The House is not returning until next week.
The spending battle is at the top of the priority list.
Crunching budget caps imposed by a
2011 fiscal deal will freeze spending for the Pentagon and nondefense Cabinet departments at last year’s levels unless they’re increased. Republicans are in control but need Democratic votes to boost the caps, a priority of the GOP and members of both parties who want additional spending for domestic programs like curbing opioid abuse.
Federal agencies will begin closing their doors on Jan. 20 unless there’s a budget pact or an agreement to keep talking. Defense Secretary James Mattis has told lawmakers that the Pentagon needs a full-year budget this month. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, concurred Tuesday in an interview, saying he was “trying to think of a word that adequately describes how vital” that is.
Even so, opposition is likely among many GOP conservatives. Democrats want increases in defense to be matched with nondefense ones.
Trump has also rescinded President Barack Obama’s executive order establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and giving the children of illegal immigrants protected status. Trump gave lawmakers until March to reach a legislative solution and has indicated a willingness to seek a deal with Democrats.
But many Republicans oppose renewing the protections, and Trump has taken a harder line recently. He tweeted Tuesday that Democrats “are doing nothing” on immigration and are “just interested in politics.”
Days earlier, he said there would be no deal without money for the wall along the Mexican border that he touted during his presidential campaign. Democrats have said they’re open to border security financing, not a wall.
Trump, Ryan and McConnell will meet at Camp David this weekend to discuss legislative plans.
It’s unclear how much can be achieved in an election year in which Democrats have a chance to win congressional control. Ryan has talked up culling savings from benefit programs like welfare, but McConnell has shown little enthusiasm for that in a chamber he’ll control by just 51-49. He would need nine Democratic votes to prevail.
The two parties have suggested pushing a mammoth infrastructure bill, but Democrats haven’t supported GOP ideas of financing it by cutting other programs.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking and Richard Lardner of The Associated Press.