Senators hope deal builds goodwill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Centrists in the Senate are celebrating their work to reopen the government after a three-day shutdown. They hope to build on their momentum to address a host of issues beyond immigration, including health care and disaster relief.

About 20 moderate senators met in the office of Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins over several days and helped broker an agreement to pass a stopgap spending measure keeping the government open until Feb. 8.

Now the senators say they want to leverage that goodwill and return the Senate to its historic role as a deliberative body that produces bipartisan legislation. Despite their optimism, lawmakers face the weight of heavy expectations and the knowledge that past attempts to forge centrist solutions on immigration and other thorny issues have been thwarted by the vocal bases of both parties.

Senators have dubbed the informal group the Common Sense Caucus, but “hopefully it’ll grow large enough that we’ll eventually call it the United States Senate,” said Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who is one of the group’s informal leaders.

King has been here before. Five years ago, he was part of a similar but smaller group that worked to end a 2013 government shutdown. That group dissipated after the government reopened, but King and others say the new effort has a chance to stick around.

“I think what’s different is a number of us have said, ‘Let’s keep this going. Let’s not make this a shutdown-only event,’” King said in an interview. “Let’s talk about some things we can do to improve how this place works.”

If they can stay united, the group could be a crucial voting bloc in the closely divided Senate, King and other senators said.

“I think everybody’s looking for that middle,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. “Everybody has input. Everybody trusts everybody in that room.”

Success in the Senate is far from guaranteed. Movement in the Republican-controlled House — where the 2013 immigration bill died without a vote — is even less certain, but senators said they are forging ahead.

“For the first time, we at least have some hope,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. “And that’s because you’ve got a bipartisan group of senators that want to get something done.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, sees the group as a “safe space” where lawmakers can exchange ideas, regardless of party.