The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congress passes bill, averting shutdown
Stopgap would keep government open until Dec. 22.
WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday passed a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend and buy time for challenging talks on a wide range of unfinished business on Capitol Hill. The shut- down reprieve came as all sides issued optimistic takes on an afternoon White House meeting between top congressional leaders and President Donald Trump.
The measure passed the House 235-193, mostly along party lines, and breezed through the Senate on a sweeping 81-14 tally barely an hour later. It would keep the government running through Dec. 22, when another, and more difficult, shutdown problem awaits.
The bill now heads to Trump for his signature.
Topics at the White House session included relief from a budget freeze on the Pentagon and domestic agencies, extending a key children’s health program and aid to hurricane-slammed Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida.
The trickiest topic, and a top priority for Democrats, involves protections for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
These “Dreamer” immi- grants are viewed sympathet- ically by the public and most lawmakers but face deporta- tion in a few months because Trump reversed administrative protections provided to them by former President Barack Obama.
In back-to-back state- ments, both Democratic and GOP leaders declared the meeting “productive.” The White House called it “constructive.”
“We had a productive conversation on a wide variety of issues. Nothing specific has been agreed to, but discussions continue,” said Capitol Hill’s top Democrats, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, ticking off a roster of Democratic priorities, including domestic spending increases, funding for veterans and money to battle opioid abuse, immigration and health care.
GOP leaders said they agreed with the need to address immigration, including the almost 1 million immigrants given protections by Obama, many of whom have only known America as their home.
Spokesmen for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said GOP leaders “stressed the need to address border secu- rity, interior enforcement and other parts of our broken immigration system,” adding that the tricky immi- gration issue “should be a separate process and not used to hold hostage funding for our men and women in uniform.”
Negotiations are sure to be challenging. Pelosi staked out a hard line Thursday and insisted that any yearend deal solve the immigration issue.
Pelosi told reporters before the meeting that “we will not leave here” without helping the “Dreamers.” Her stance was noteworthy because GOP leaders are likely to require Democratic votes for the pre-Christmas spending bill.
The White House said “negotiations on immigration should be held separately on a different track” and not slow down funding increases for the Pentagon.
Pelosi returned from the White House to opp ose Thursday’s stopgap bill. Fourteen Democrats supported the measure, however, while 18 Republicans opposed it.
Among Republicans, the conservative House Freedom Caucus had resisted the pending stopgap measure earlier in the week, fearing it would lead to a bad deal for conservatives down the road.
B ut on Thursday, the group’s chairman, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the group will likely give leaders whatever support they need to pass the legislation.