Right Now The
U.S. government is close to reopening. Senate Democrats helped advance a
stopgap bill after a G.O.P. pledge to continue immigration talks. Check
out our live vote tracker to see how each lawmaker voted.
• The Senate voted 81-18 to break the filibuster and reopen the government.
• Democrats had debated whether to trust Senator Mitch McConnell’s word.
• Before the government can reopen, the House must approve the measure that the Senate passed.
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Senate votes to end shutdown.
The
Senate voted 81-18 on Monday to end the three-day old government
shutdown, with Democrats joining Republicans to clear the way for the
passage of a short-term spending package that would fund the government
through February 8 in exchange for a promise from Republican leaders to
address the fate of young, undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
“In
a few hours, the government will reopen,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of
New York, the Democratic leader. “We have a lot to do.”
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The
procedural vote does not immediately end the shutdown. The Senate must
still grant final approval of the bill, and it must then be approved by
the House.
But
final passage is a formality, and after a weekend of partisan
finger-pointing — in which Democrats branded the shutdown the “Trump
Shutdown,” after President Trump, and Republicans branded it the
“Schumer shutdown” — the vote offered both parties a way out of an ugly
impasse that threatened to cause political harm to both parties.
Mr.
Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, announced that he and Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, had “come to an
arrangement” to adopt the three-week spending measure while continuing
to negotiate a “global agreement” that would include the fate of the
dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
Monday’s
vote came after a frantic weekend of work by a bipartisan group of more
than 20 senators, who on Sunday night were discussing a plan in which
the government would stay open through early February, coupled with a
promise from Mr. McConnell to allow a vote on a measure to protect the
Dreamers from deportation.
Mr.
McConnell pledged Monday morning that he would permit a “free and open
debate” on immigration next month if the issue had not been resolved by
then. But his promise was not enough for many Democrats, and on Monday
morning, moderate Senate Democrats were still pressing for more in
exchange for their votes to end the shutdown.
By the time of the vote just after noon on Monday, the moderate Democrats were predicting the vote would pass.
“We’re
going to vote to reopen the government,” Senator Mark Warner of
Virginia, a Democrat whose state is home to thousands of federal
workers, told reporters. Mr. Warner said there was now a “path clear on
how we’re going to get a full-year budget and we got a path clear on how
we’re going to start an immigration debate.”
Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he was a “strong” yes.
“I
said before trust but verify,” he said of Mr. McConnell. “He made this
commitment publicly in the Senate floor. He was much more specific than
he was last night. And frankly I think this is an important opportunity
for him to demonstrate that he will carry through.”
— Sheryl Gay Stolberg
“Put this mess behind us.”
Mr.
McConnell said on Monday morning that the Senate would move ahead with a
scheduled procedural vote at noon on a proposal to fund the government
through Feb. 8, and he urged his colleagues to put an end to the
shutdown.
“Every
day we spend arguing about keeping the lights on is another day we
cannot spend negotiating DACA or defense spending or any of our other
shared priorities,” Mr. McConnell said, referring to Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals, the program put in place by the Obama
administration that shields young undocumented immigrants from
deportation.
Mr.
McConnell reiterated a pledge he offered on Sunday night that he
intended for the Senate to take up immigration legislation in February
if the issue has not been resolved by then. A major question as senators
seek to end the shutdown is what kind of commitment Mr. McConnell is
willing to make regarding the consideration of legislation for the young
immigrants, a central issue in the current impasse.
On
Monday, Mr. McConnell pledged that the Senate’s immigration debate
would have “a level playing field at the outset and an amendment process
that is fair to all sides.”
“The very first step is ending the government shutdown,” he said.
— Thomas Kaplan
Democrats wanted more than McConnell’s word.
Moderate
Senate Democrats Monday morning had sought a firmer commitment from Mr.
McConnell that the Senate would move to address the fate of hundreds of
thousands of young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, in the
coming weeks.
The
Democrats were part of a bipartisan group of more than 20 senators
working throughout the weekend to forge a compromise to reopen the
government. Mr. McConnell signaled Sunday night that he was listening to
their demands, saying from the Senate floor that he intended to move
ahead with immigration legislation in February if the issue had not been
resolved by then.
But on Monday, Democrats wanted more in exchange for the votes to end the shutdown.
“Well
I think the first thing he needs to do is strengthen his statement from
last night,” said Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who votes
with the Democrats. “ ‘I intend.’ I would much rather he say, ‘I
commit’ or ‘I will move.’”
As
senators from the group shuffled in and out of leadership offices,
Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and another member of the
group, expressed optimism that such a public statement by Mr. McConnell
would be enough to win over enough Democrats to vote to end the
shutdown. Some Democrats called on Mr. McConnell to delay a procedural
vote schedule for noon.
The
crux issue, it seemed, was whether the majority leader could be trusted
to keep his word. Democrats have not forgiven Mr. McConnell for
blocking the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland for almost a
year pending the election of a Republican to the White House. And Mr.
McConnell’s promises to Republican Senators Flake and Susan Collins of
Maine for votes on health care and immigration in exchange for their
support of the tax cut have yet to materialize.
How much of the issue is that mistrust?
“Uh, most of it,” said Senator Joseph Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia.
— Nicholas Fandos
Liberal activists weren’t ready to relent.
A
broad array of liberal advocacy groups — including unions and
immigrants’ rights activists — stepped up pressure on Democrats not to
accede on Monday to any deal that does not include protections for the
young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
The advocates made clear that they do not trust Mr. McConnell.
“To
anyone considering such a move, let me clear, promises won’t protect
anyone from deportation, because delay means deportation for us,” said
Greisa Martinez Rosas, advocacy director for America’s Voice, an
immigrant rights group.
Moderate
Senate Democrats on Monday were seeking a firmer commitment from Mr.
McConnell. But the groups remained skeptical. Vanita Gutpta, the
president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights, harked back to Democrats’ vote on Friday to block a
spending bill that would have kept the government open, without
protecting the Dreamers.
“We’ve
made it clear that the broad progressive movement is unified in saying
the Democrats stood strong on Friday, they absolutely need to continue
to do so,” Ms. Gupta said. She added, “Simply put a dream deferred right
now is a dream denied for hundreds of thousands in our country.”
The
Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, was blunt: “Everyone
in the Senate should have learned the lesson Senators Flake and Collins
learned: you can’t trust Mitch McConnell. His promises are empty from
the start.”
— Sheryl Gay Stolberg
The White House comment line had an attitude.
On
Monday morning, a telephone call to the White House comment line
reminded callers that the federal government was shutdown and offered
the Trump administration’s explanation for why: “Unfortunately, we
cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are
holding government funding for our troops and other national security
priorities hostage to an unrelated immigration debate,” a recording
said. “Due to this obstruction the government is shut down.”
Setting
aside the partisan nature of the call, its message was only half true,
if that. Most of the government is functioning, at least for now. The
Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Communications
Commission say they have enough money in the pipeline to operate
normally. The White House ordered the National Parks to stay open,
depriving the media of the most obvious signs of dysfunction.
Even
Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s
intervention in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with the
Trump campaign, is still in action. He has declared his investigators
“essential employees.”
But
was the recording legal? Norm Eisen, who served as the top ethics
lawyer during Barack Obama’s first term in the White House and is now on
the board of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, said the message probably did not violate the Hatch Act, the
statute that bars most executive branch employees from engaging in
political activity. It certainly does run contrary to its policy, and
therefore “would have been inconceivable in any other administration, of
either party.”
“This
telephone message falls in the very thin, gray area where this White
House lives, which is quite a bit north of definitely wrong, but just
south, or on the borderline, of illegal,” Mr. Eisen said.
He
said it violated the longstanding norm observed by presidents in both
parties that the White House staff, particularly nonpartisan career
employees such as the person likely to have recorded the message, is
there to serve all Americans, not just those who voted for him.
But
the recording would be unlikely to generate a formal complaint, Mr.
Eisen said, because no specific political candidate was mentioned. The
White House changed the message as the Senate headed toward a deal.
— Eileen Sullivan and Julie Hirschfeld Davis
White House shows signs it’s on the offense.
After
a weekend of relative silence from the White House, Raj Shah, a White
House spokesman, appeared on CNN to defend President Trump, who had been
publicly criticized as disengaged on the negotiations and unduly
influenced by his senior advisers.
“We’re
happy with how the president engaged,” Mr. Shah said, before shifting
blame to the Democrats. “It was them that were holding back funding for
our military, our troops, our border patrol agents and our first
responders.”
Mr.
Shah also defended a president who has been publicly accused by
lawmakers in his own party of deferring to Stephen Miller, the adviser
who is ideologically behind much of the White House’s restrictive
immigration agenda.
“Those
charges are frankly ridiculous, and they’re a little insulting,” Mr.
Shah said. “The views that the president is endorsing are his and his
alone.”
Mr.
Trump, a president prone to hit back against his critics in real time,
remained relatively restrained on Monday, except to accuse Democrats of
being cowed by activists who want a fast decision on the fate of the
Dreamers.
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