Federal closure averted
Congress OKs short-term spending bill but fails to act on wildfire aid, ‘Dreamers’
WASHINGTON — Congress averted a partial government shutdown Thursday by passing a short-term spending bill, but an $81 billion disaster-aid bill died in the Senate after winning passage in the House.
Rushing to leave for the Christmas break, Congress punted to next year not only disaster aid for California’s record fires and the three hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast this fall, but a list of other urgent business.
Those include conferring legal status on 800,000 young immigrants who enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that President Trump ended in September. Trump gave Congress until March 5 to remedy their status before subjecting them to deportation. Roughly a third of these “Dreamers” reside in California.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program that provides health care to 9 million children, including 1.3 million in California, expired Sept. 30, and states are running short of money to continue coverage. Recipients are children who do not qualify for Medicaid but whose parents lack insurance. Roughly a quarter have special health needs.
Congress also must renew,
repeal or amend a law that allows warrantless surveillance of U.S. residents and expires Dec. 31.
Republicans, who control Congress, made a $1.5 trillion tax bill their top priority for the past two months. That legislation cleared both chambers Wednesday, but left just two days before the holiday recess to deal with unfinished business. Lawmakers faced a Friday midnight deadline on a spending bill to keep the government operating, but were unable to resolve differences between the parties over military and domestic spending and other issues, so instead passed a temporary bill that lasts until Jan. 19.
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both Democrats, voted against the funding bill, which passed 66-32 in the Senate with significant help from moderate Democrats. Feinstein and Harris had said they would oppose the bill because it lacked help for young immigrants.
Harris called the bill “shortterm and shortsighted,” saying Congress “has said loud and clear that Dreamers, children, and families devastated by wildfires can wait — but corporate tax cuts can’t.”
Feinstein accused Republicans of “doubling down on their failed strategy of secrecy,” coming up with a government funding bill “at the very last minute that ignores many of our highest-priority needs.”
The disaster-relief bill had passed in the House on a 261169 vote, but stalled later in the Senate when Republicans refused to take it up for a vote. Even in the House, the bill was met with opposition from conservatives upset about the cost, as well as many Bay Area Democrats.
The Democrats were eager for relief for their state but furious over how Republicans left hanging other issues, such as a solution for the Dreamers. They were also unhappy with the disaster bill itself, which they felt gave short shrift to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Seventeen of California’s 53 House Democrats voted against the disaster-aid bill. One Republican, Tom McClintock of Elk Grove (Sacramento County) voted with other conservatives against it.
Republicans said the relief bill would have been the largest ever passed by Congress, bringing total disaster spending for the year to an astonishing $133 billion. Conservative Republicans balked at the price tag and wanted the spending offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget.
The bill was aimed at assisting recovery from three big hurricanes that struck Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this fall and the enormous wildfires in California that struck Wine Country in October and then coastal Southern California this month, during what normally is the rainy season.
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who fought to get relief for the Wine Country fires, said many Democrats were upset at the lack of action on children’s health care and young immigrants, which he said was “inexcusable, so you can certainly understand why people were upset about this.”
Republicans had just passed a tax bill — without needing Democratic support — that will add at least $1 trillion to the national debt, said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, yet they sought Democratic votes to pass disaster aid because their own members balked at the price tag.
Republicans, he said, have “created this ridiculous world that they live in, and because we are here too, we have to try to navigate it when they need our votes. But they only come to us when they don’t want to take a stand.”
DeSaulnier, who voted for the disaster aid, said passage of the tax bill without Democratic input made the decision harder for Democrats. “The fact that the atmosphere is so poisoned because of what we just went through makes every single thing more difficult to do,” he said.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont, said he took what he called a tough vote against the disaster aid, saying the bill showed a “moral blindness to the crisis in Puerto Rico,” and came just one day after the House gave final approval to a tax bill that levies a 12.5 percent excise tax on goods from the island territory.
“It’s outrageous,” he said. “We’re treating them like a colony, taxing their goods to us at a time when they need relief.”
Republicans said the bill contained significant provisions for Puerto Rico and struck the right balance between the larger requests from the states’ governors and the amount the Trump administration requested, which was half as much as the bill provides.
The legislation also included what may be the highest funding levels yet to help states reduce damage from future disasters. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock (Stanislaus County), said it incorporated his ideas to stop spending disaster money on “rebuilding the same structures in the same disaster-prone places.”
The legislation would have created a mitigation fund for states and localities, and incentives to use it. Denham said for every $1 spent on mitigation, $4 is saved on disaster relief. The Trump administration, which has stifled numerous climatechange programs across the government, has been reluctant to fund such efforts.
Other Bay Area Democrats voting no on the disaster bill were Reps. Anna Eshoo, of Palo Alto, Barbara Lee, of Oakland, Zoe Lofgren, of San Jose, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, of San Francisco, and Eric Swalwell, of Dublin.
The bill died in the Senate when Republicans refused to take it up for consideration, citing lack of time.
All California Democrats except two, Jim Costa of Fresno and Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert (Riverside County) voted no on the short-term spending bill.