To end shutdown, Trump suggests ‘ nuclear option’
WASHINGTON – As the partial government shutdown stretched into its second day, President Trump brought up one of his favorite suggestions to break a congressional logjam: End the Senate rule that requires 60 votes for legislation to pass.
Trump called on Republicans to invoke the “nuclear option” to try to pass a “real, long- term” spending bill rather than continue funding the government through a short- term measure.
In the House, Republicans can pass legislation with only their own members because of the size of their majority — and they did so Thursday night to advance a spending bill to keep the government open.
But the vote fell short in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow5149 majority, and passing most legislation requires bipartisan support. Even if the whole party sticks together, it needs at least nine Democrats to get on board.
“If ordinary rules prevailed, the majority rules in the Senate, the government would be open as of today,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said when asked on CNN Sunday about Trump’s call to change the rules.
“It also responds to this constant criticism we hear: ‘ Oh, you Republicans control the White House and the House and the Senate. Why can’t you just fund the government?’ ” he continued. “It takes 60 votes in the Senate. We cannot open the government without Senate Democrats’ support.”
But even though the 60- vote threshold makes it difficult for Republicans to pass their priorities,
there didn’t seem to be an appetite on either side of the aisle to get rid of the rule.
“The Republican Conference opposes changing the rules on legislation,” David Popp, spokesman for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., told USA TODAY.
Democrats also objected. “That would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our founding fathers. We have to acknowledge a respect for the minority,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill., said on ABC.
The government ran out of money at 12: 01 a. m. Saturday after the Senate blocked a continuing resolution that would have kept the government open for four weeks and extended the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The final tally in the Senate early Saturday was 50- 49, with the majority of Democrats and a handful of Republicans voting against advancing the short- term spending bill.
Government operations began ramping downon the one- year anniversary of Trump’s presidency.
Democrats opposed the shortterm bill because it did not include protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the U. S. illegally as children, or “DREAMers,” and did not address a broad array of their other domestic spending priorities.
Republicans pinned the blame squarely on Senate Democrats. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R- Wis., said on CBS that Democrats shut down the government “over an unrelated immigration issue with a deadline weeks away.”
“This is ridiculous. Open the government back up, and then we’ll get back to negotiations,” Ryan said.
Trump announced in September that he would end the Obama- era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected 800,000 immigrants from deportation. Trump gave Congress six months to find a solution for the DREAMers.