GOVERNMENT
The House later passed the bill 266-150, with all Ohio Democrats opposing the measure except for a “yea” vote from Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo. All Ohio Republicans backed the bill except for Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, who did not vote.
President Donald Trump then signed the bill reopening the government, ending a 69-hour display of partisan dysfunction.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D–N.Y., announced the breakthrough on the Senate floor shortly before a scheduled vote on a bill to keep the government open for at least 17 days. The measure also extends for six years the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides billions of federal dollars to the states to pay for the health-care costs of lowincome children.
“We expect that a bipartisan bill on DACA will receive fair consideration and an up– or–down vote on the floor,” Schumer said of Democrats’ understanding.
Earlier Monday, McConnell pledged to have the Senate take up immigration after the government reopens. In a floor speech Monday morning, the Kentucky senator promised “an amendment process that is fair to all sides. ... This immigration debate will have a level playing field at the outset.”
Said Trump in a statement: “I am pleased that Democrats in Congress have come to their senses and are now willing to fund our great military, border patrol, first responders, and insurance for vulnerable children.”
In a separate e-mail to supporters, he exulted: “Democrats CAVED — because of you ... We can’t let them get away with it. We will never forget the names of EVERY single liberal obstructionist responsible for this disgusting shut down, and we will work to FIRE them come November.”
Regarding DACA, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn’t answer a question about a Trump campaign web ad that said Democrats would be “complicit” in any murders committed by undocumented immigrants.
Even if the Senate does ultimately vote on a bill on DACA, it’s unclear whether the House would follow suit.
And Republicans and Democrats seemed to disagree on the takeaway from Monday’s deal. Brown and others said they were hopeful that the agreement would be the beginning of a new era of bipartisan compromise. Republicans, meanwhile, argued that Democrats learned the hard way what congressional Republicans learned in 1995 and 2013: that it is difficult to prevail in a partial shutdown against a White House that will not budge.
“I think if we’ve learned anything during this process it’s that a strategy to shut down the government over the issue of illegal immigration is something that the American people didn’t understand and wouldn’t have understood in the future,” McConnell said.
Portman echoed those comments: “It was wrong of Democrats to vote against continuing the operations of the government for something unrelated.”
Democrats including Brown, however, seemed heartened that the agreement would mean not only fewer short-term spending bills but possible compromises on pensions and other issues.
Their optimism appeared to carry onto the Senate floor, where Republicans and Democrats chatted amiably with one another before the vote.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D–Ill., said the dialogue over the weekend was something he’d not seen in years:
“constructive bipartisan conversation and dialogue on the floor.”
Brown, meanwhile, said senators had “better conversations than we’ve seen in a long time, more substantive and more sort of directed.”
He said he had voted against the spending bill that failed Friday — even though it included the children’s health insurance funding — and shut down the government, largely because of his frustration with the temporary, month-tomonth spending measures.
“You can’t run a government like that,” he said, saying the accord reached Monday “fundamentally changes it.” If Republicans keep their part of the agreement and allow a debate on DACA, he said, it will be the first time they have allowed a Democratic amendment on the Senate floor since Trump has been president.
Although most analysts do not believe a brief shutdown will have any meaningful impact on the November elections, Senate Democrats such as Brown were among those under intense pressure to reopen the government, with the National Republican Senate Committee airing ads online against them in states that Trump won in 2016.
If there was any consensus afterward, it was this: Republicans and Democrats would have to rely on one another in order to forge compromise; they’d have to leave the mercurial Trump out of it.
“The great deal–making president sat on the sidelines,” Schumer said.