WASHINGTON — Senators met privately on Wednesday to discuss off-ramps to prevent a government shutdown this weekend, with both parties recognizing that a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security cannot pass in its current form.
A funding deal that passed the House last week has been upended by the DHS killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota over the weekend — and the subsequent public outcry, which prompted Democrats and a top Republican to say the department should not be funded without policy changes.
The deadline is Friday at 11:59 p.m. ET, leaving little time to hash out a solution that can achieve the 60 votes needed in the Senate.
One idea that has gained traction: a short-term funding bill for DHS, while the two parties negotiate changes to the department, along with the five remaining appropriations bills to fund the rest of the government through Sept. 30.
Senate Democrats and the White House are inching closer to an agreement on a path forward with those five bills plus a stopgap bill for DHS, a source familiar with the negotiations told NBC News. Democrats are insisting that if they do pass what's called a continuing resolution or "CR" for DHS, it would be short, simply to provide more time to negotiate those reforms.
“It’s an item that has been discussed on both sides,” said GOP Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
But he added that it will only proceed “if the president is on board first.” The White House has not commented on the idea.
“We’re open. We recognize that if we do nothing, then we have a government shutdown, which nobody wants,” added Rounds, who has been speaking with Democrats about possible off-ramps. “If we get five of the six bills across the finish line, with House cooperation, that’s funding really close to in excess of 90% of the government, with basically only Homeland left.”
Multiple Republican senators said they’d be supportive of that approach — but only if the White House supports it.
“We have to have an open mind on the options. And obviously one that we’re talking about is the five bills goal, and we do some work on DHS,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. “But obviously, the White House has to decide and tell us what they want.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., kept the door open Wednesday when asked about the idea of five bills and a short-term funding bill for DHS. But he indicated that the onus would be on the Democrats to cut a deal with the White House.
“These are all hypotheticals at this point, and I would reserve optionality to consider that,” Thune said after a Senate GOP lunch meeting in response to a question from NBC News. “But I think the best path forward, as I said, is to keep the package intact. And if there are things that the Democrats want, the administration can agree with them about, then let’s do that.”
“One thing I do know,” Thune said. “And that is that a government shutdown is not in anybody’s interest — whether it’s a partial one or a six-bill one or a one-bill one.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused ICE of waging “state-sanctioned thuggery” and laid out three demands to overhaul DHS that he said Democrats are “united” behind: End “roving patrols” and tighten rules on warrants for arrests; enforce accountability with a “uniform code of conduct"; and require agents to remove their masks, carry ID and wear body cameras.
Schumer, who is pushing Thune to strip out the DHS bill and vote on the rest of the package, sidestepped when asked if he’d support a stopgap bill for DHS while his demands are negotiated.
“First, if funding lapses, it’s all because of Leader Thune,” Schumer said. “It’s on his back. He could easily fund 96% of the budget by simply putting the five bills on the floor. As I said, you can just do that by taking DHS out, which you can do by an amendment. And given the need to do this, we could very quickly negotiate a bipartisan proposal of DHS to end violence.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he wants Republicans to agree to significant safeguards on ICE operations, including requirements for judicial warrants for arrests, mandatory body cameras and civil liability for officers who break the law.
But Blumenthal added that he would be open to the idea of passing the five bills, with DHS funding moving forward as a CR.
It would be a “last resort to avoid a shutdown, but there has to be some agreements on reforms,” said Blumenthal, a former Connecticut attorney general. “My priority is safeguards to protect against the kind of physical violence and violation of rights that we’ve seen so flagrantly in real time on the streets and neighborhoods of America.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, has been a prominent GOP critic of DHS operations in Minnesota and called for a hearing with DHS leaders. He said Wednesday that ICE shouldn’t get more funds without reforms.
“I don’t want to defund ICE, but I’m not sure I want to give them billions and billions more without any kind of signs of there are going to be some rules of the game, and there will be an independent investigation” into Pretti’s shooting, Paul said on Fox Business.
Conservative Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he agreed with the approach Rounds laid out. Both serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee that controls government funding.
“At this juncture, the smart play is to carve out the Homeland Security bill and we can fight over that,” he said, “but in the meantime, try to do a CR [on DHS] and pass the other bills.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said of the idea: “That’s got to come from the White House. If they OK it, I guess it would work.”
The idea also has its share of skeptics, including Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who said: “I think it’s going to be all or nothing.”
He predicted that Trump won’t endorse the idea of splitting off DHS: “I don’t think he’s going to support it.”
Even if senators do strike an 11th-hour agreement, there still could be a funding lapse. Before the Pretti killing, the House last week sent the Senate a six-bill package that funded the Departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Homeland Security and other agencies through the end of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
Any changes the Senate makes to that funding package would need to go back to the House, which is on recess this week and not slated to return to Washington until Monday. A brief funding lapse until early next week would have minimal practical impact if agencies have confidence it’d be quickly resolved.
That would mean buy-in from the House. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he didn’t think decoupling the bills could pass the lower chamber.
“I think there’s a real question whether the House possibly could pass those bills separately,” Cornyn said. “I think it’s a miracle we got this far.”
