Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for a post-election smackdown on funding for a southern border wall.
President Trump made building a wall along the Mexican border a top campaign promise and he has grown impatient with Republicans, who run both chambers but have yet to produce legislation providing more than a fraction of the billions it would cost to complete it.
Now Republicans are pledging to push for wall funding in the lame duck session once Congress returns about a week after the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
“We are going to try really hard to get the money the president would like this year for the border wall ,” McConnell told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
It may be their final chance.
Polls show the GOP’s majority in the Senate is relatively safe, but the Republican-led House is in serious jeopardy due to dozens of GOP seats that are poised for takeover by the Democrats.
If Democrats win the House, Republicans will have just a few weeks left in control of both chambers.
When lawmakers return from the election break, Senate Republicans will push for adding $5 billion in wall funding to the fiscal 2019 Homeland Security appropriations measure. The figure matches the House-passed measure but is far more than the $1.6 billion included in the Senate’s bipartisan measure.
It’s a significant shift for the Senate GOP, which has over the past two budget cycles been willing to settle for just $1.6 billion annually for border wall construction.
In order to match the House amount, McConnell will face opposition from Democrats who are firmly opposed to significant wall funding.
Democrats say a southern border wall is unnecessary and a waste of money. They point to the annual budget process and argue the president is asking to spend well beyond what would be needed to match the pace of construction.
“It’s more than they can reasonably spend in a one-year period of time,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday.
The two parties have time to bicker for only a few weeks before finding a solution.
Homeland Security funding runs out in mid-December, and it’s wrapped up with several other federal spending bills that fund the departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services and others.
If the two sides can’t make a deal by the December deadline, about 25 percent of federal funding would lapse.
Republicans are eager to avoid a spending showdown, which could reflect poorly on their party and is viewed unfavorably in polls.
Senate Republicans can’t simply bolster wall funding and pass it with their own majority. Senate rules require 60 votes to pass most legislation. That means nine Democrats minimum will be required to move spending legislation across the finish line.
Democrats believe they have the most leverage. If they refuse to vote for a spending bill with major wall funding, the party will simply blame the GOP majority for any funding lapse.
“I don’t believe a shutdown is anything Republicans can brag about since they are in charge,” Durbin said.
Some Republicans are proposing solutions.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the Senate should remove wall funding from the fiscal 2019 spending negotiations and instead put it in a budget resolution in which special procedural rules would allow it to pass with 51 votes.
Republicans used a similar procedure to pass tax cuts in 2017 without a single vote from Democrats.
“It would be doing a budget reconciliation for the next fiscal year,” Cruz said. “The same legislative procedure we used to pass the tax cuts, we can and should use to build the wall.”
Other lawmakers are optimistic the two parties can cut a deal on wall funding by including sweeteners that would appeal to the Democrats.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Democrats could be convinced to increase wall funding if Republicans agree to a measure legalizing the so-called Dreamers, who arrived illegally in the United States as children.
They have been allowed to obtain work permits and remain in the United States under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals rule, or DACA. But DACA has been challenged in the courts and Republicans believe it was an executive branch overreach, which has left the Dreamers in limbo.
Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have tried a half-dozen times to pass legislation to resolve border security issues and find a solution for the Dreamers, but every single measure has been defeated.
Graham, who has authored several comprehensive immigration reform measures, thinks end-of-year spending negotiations could facilitate an accord.
“I think there is a deal to be done for wall funding and doing something with DACA,” Graham said Thursday. “I’ve always believed that. It makes sense to me.”
