House Republicans broke a months-long logjam on Tuesday by passing President Donald Trump’s package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the remainder of his term, bypassing Democrats who had been demanding reforms to the agencies as a condition for a bipartisan vote. But already, tensions are boiling over whether to use the budget process once again.
It’s the second time in Trump’s second term that Republicans have used the budget reconciliation process to push partisan legislation, getting around the Senate’s filibuster rule.
Now, as Democrats threaten to walk away from the table for appropriation bills in retaliation for being cut out of the process to fund immigration enforcement and trigger another shutdown, some Republicans want to tee up a third one — and some very much do not.
According to Politico, a number of senior GOP lawmakers “are holding out hope that collegiality on the House and Senate funding panels will ultimately prevail — if for no other reason than the margins of the GOP majorities in both chambers depend on it.” Some other lawmakers, however, fear the GOP has “opened the door to funding more conservative priorities through reconciliation measures rather than the annual government funding bills.”
Already, House Freedom Caucus stalwart Andy Harris (R-MD) has proposed another round of reconciliation to achieve other GOP priorities, but Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), a more leadership-aligned conservative in charge of the House Appropriations Committee, shut that down immediately.
“We’re not doing that. I will just tell you flat out, that will not happen,” said Cole to reporters this week. “I don’t think [the GOP-only reconciliation bill] is a precedent. But if it became a regular practice, I certainly wouldn’t be supporting it.”
All of this comes after a major battle, in which MAGA lawmakers tried to demand the SAVE Act, a package of nationwide voter restrictions, be attached to the reconciliation package — which was shut down by leaders as it was certain to be ruled out of order in the Senate.
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