Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) brought up a House-passed shell bill to use as the vehicle for the Senate’s immigration debate this week, and directed his colleagues that “whoever gets 60 votes wins.” The President, meanwhile, threatened to veto any bipartisan agreement that didn’t advance his four principles, two of which were non-starters for Democrats. The debate got off to a slow start, as members couldn’t agree on how to even begin. This didn’t leave them much time to reach a deal as McConnell said that debate on immigration reform would be limited to this week.

The Senate held four votes on immigration reform amendments and none of them had the 60 votes needed for passage. Here’s a summary of the four amendments, the vote tally for each amendment, a link to the amendment language, and the members whose votes broke with their party’s consensus.

Coons/McCain Amendment

Vote: 52-47

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1955/text

The amendment provided a pathway to citizenship for the 1.8M undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children. It did not offer any funding for a border wall, but it did include some border security measures.

Democrats voting no:

Manchin (D-WV)

Republicans voting yes:

Flake (R-AZ)

Gardner (R-CO)

Graham (R-SC)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Toomey Amendment

Vote: 54-45

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1948/text

This amendment didn’t actually address the DACA issue. Instead, it would have penalized sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce federal immigration policy by withholding federal funding from those municipalities.

Democrats voting yes:

Donnelly (D-IN)

Manchin (D-WV)

McCaskill (D-MO)

Stabenow (D-MI)

Schumer/Collins/Flake/Graham Amendment

Vote: 54-45

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1958/text

This was a centrist deal from the Common Sense Caucus, but President Trump and his supporters in the Senate opposed it because it did not cover all four immigration pillars he demanded. The amendment provided a pathway to citizenship for the 1.8M undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, but it prevented DACA recipients from sponsoring their parents for legal status. It also included $25B for border security. This amendment was the one that was thought to have the best chance of passing.

Democrats voting no:

Harris (D-CA)

Heinrich (D-NM)

Udall (D-NM)

Republicans voting yes:

Alexander (R-TN)

Collins (R-ME)

Flake (R-AZ)

Gardner (R-CO)

Graham (R-SC)

Isakson (R-GA)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Rounds (R-SD)

Grassley Amendment

Vote: 39-60

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1959/text

This was the White House’s immigration framework, which included a pathway to citizenship, $25B in border security, tougher interior enforcement, curtailment of family immigration, and elimination of the diversity visa lottery program. Failure of this amendment demonstrates that the President’s preferred immigration plan cannot pass the Senate.

Republicans voting no:

Barrasso (R-WY)

Collins (R-ME)

Cruz (R-TX)

Daines (R-MT)

Enzi (R-WY)

Flake (R-AZ)

Inhofe (R-OK)

Kennedy (R-LA)

Lee (R-UT)

Moran (R-KS)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Paul (R-KY)

Sasse (R-NE)

Thune (R-SD)

Democrats voting yes:

Donnelly (D-IN)

Heitkamp (D-ND)

Manchin (D-WV)

While the President initially set March 5 as the deadline for Congress to resolve the DACA issue, a federal judge has blocked the termination of the program. The injunction probably won’t get lifted before April at the earliest, and June at the latest. So Congress has at least another month to sort it out before dreamers will face deportation.

Republicans are now looking for a Plan B. Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) are floating a proposal to extend the DACA program indefinitely in exchange for $25B for border security. More specifically, the deal would provide “Dreamers” with two-year renewal periods to protect them from deportation in exchange for a $25B trust fund for border security that would cap outlays at $5B a year. This proposal, however, does not include the President’s demands for changes to family immigration and the visa lottery program. The President will need to support any backup plan in order for it to have a chance of passing.

The federal government briefly shut down at midnight last night as Congress worked to complete action on the fifth continuing resolution for fiscal year 2018. The Senate passed H.R. 1892, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 by a vote of 71-28 (37 Democrats/Independents voted in favor of the measure while 16 Republicans voted against it) and the House followed passing it by a vote of 240-186 (73 Democrats voted in favor of the measure while 67 Republicans voted against it – many of whom are members of the House Freedom Caucus). While the Senate had secured a bipartisan agreement earlier in the week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wanted the Senate to vote on an amendment to restore the budget caps to the lower levels. He objected to requests to allow an expedited vote on the spending deal so the Senate had to wait to vote on the measure until Sen. Paul’s allotted time ran out after midnight.

The bill includes an FY2018 continuing resolution (CR) funding the federal government through March 23 and raises the spending caps for FY2018 and FY2019. The budget agreement lifts the defense spending caps from $549B in FY2018 and $562B in FY2019 to $629B (base budget)/$700B (with OCO funds) in FY2018 and $647B (base budget)/$716B (with OCO funds) in FY2019. For nondefense spending, the caps are raised from $516B in FY2018 and $530B in FY2019 to $579B in FY2018 and $598B in FY2019. The agreement also suspends the debt ceiling until March 2019. At that point, the Treasury Department would again begin using extraordinary measures to avoid default buying Congress some additional time before they would have to address the issue.

H.R. 1892 also included:

• $6B over two years would go towards anti-opioid and mental health efforts
• $20B for infrastructure projects like surface transportation, rural broadband, and clean drinking water
• $5.8B for Child Care Development Block Grants
• $4B to rebuild veterans hospitals and clinics
• $2B for the National Institutes of Health
• $4B for college affordability programs, including those for police officers, firefighters, and teachers
• $4B to help clear out a Veterans health care maintenance claims backlog
• Only $100B of the spending increases would be offset (most of the increased spending will be financed by additional borrowing)
• $89.3B in Emergency Funds for Hurricane-Affected Communities
• $4.9B in increased Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands with a 100% federal cost share
• Tax Extenders – one year extensions of tax breaks that expired after CY2016
• Repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board established by the Affordable Care Act to help rein in Medicare costs
• $1.1B to help dairy and cotton farmers
• A 10 year extension of the authorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• $7B over two years for community health centers
• Closes the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit “donut hole” for seniors in 2019
• Creation of two joint select congressional committees tasked with:
  • Developing legislation on multi-employer pension plans
  • Come up with budget process reform legislation

With the overall funding levels for defense and nondefense now agreed to, the House and Senate Appropriations committees can begin to rewrite their 12 FY2018 spending bills to the higher spending levels. The FY2018 omnibus spending bill is expected to be considered before this new CR expires on March 23.

H.R. 1892

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Bipartisan%20Budget%20Act%20of%202018.pdf

Summary

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/020718-CR-SUMMARY.pdf

Disaster Relief Summary

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/020718-SUPPLEMENTAL-SUMMARY.pdf

The House passed a $659B FY18 defense appropriations bill (H.R. 695) this week for the third time on a mostly party-line vote of 250-166 (23 Democrats voted yes). The bill includes $584B in regular appropriations and $70B in emergency supplemental spending. The vote in the House was largely symbolic, as the bill had no chance of passing the Senate. Democrats in the Senate first want to reach a bipartisan budget deal. The funding caps for FY18 are $549B for defense and $516B for non-defense programs. H.R. 695’s funding level exceeds the FY18 funding cap by $35B, but a provision in the bill exempts it from the automatic sequestration cuts that would be triggered.

The current FY18 continuing resolution (CR) funds the federal government through next Thursday, February 8. The House will likely consider another CR (the fifth this fiscal year) that would keep the government open another six weeks through March 22.

The six week timeframe for the CR could complicate negotiations as the deadline for winding down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program set by the President is March 5, and the Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the Treasury Department will run out of extraordinary measures for the debt ceiling sometime in the first half of March. Both issues need to be addressed before March 22.

The Trump administration has asked House Republicans to include language suspending the debt ceiling in the next short-term spending bill. In addition to a provision to raise the debt ceiling, the next CR could include $80B in disaster relief as well as a $300B sequester relief package.