Senate GOP losing patience with Speaker Johnson as DHS faces crisis

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated with Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) decision not to put a Senate-passed bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the House floor for a vote as they fear the White House could soon run out of money to pay federal workers affected by the partial government shutdown.

GOP senators have been careful not to publicly criticize Johnson and House conservatives who are holding up the Senate-passed Homeland Security funding bill so as not to further inflame the situation.

But they are warning that White House will soon be running out of flexibility to keep paying Homeland Security workers — including employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard and other critical agencies — if Congress doesn’t act soon.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she wants the House to act immediately on the package the Senate passed by unanimous consent before Easter that would fund much of DHS but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Border Patrol.

“I think that makes more sense in trying to move things quickly,” she said.

Murkowski acknowledged there’s mounting frustration among GOP senators over the failure of House to vote on the Senate-passed package, which senators had hoped would provide a quick solution to the two-month-long impasse over Homeland Security funding.

“I think we viewed it as this would be the simple, quickest, most targeted way” to end the partial government shutdown, she said.

A Republican senator who requested anonymity said that GOP senators most blame Democrats for repeatedly blocking a Homeland Security appropriations bill that includes funding for ICE.

But the senator said Johnson’s refusal to move quickly on the Senate-passed compromise is making a bad situation worse.

The senator said Johnson backed out of a deal that GOP senators thought the Speaker had agreed to with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) before the Easter recess to take up the Senate-passed funding bill.

“We have agreements at the top levels with our leadership in a lot of ways — or at least conceptual agreements — I don’t know why we can’t stand by them. That is frustrating,” the senator said.

Senate Republicans agreed to a deal with Democrats in late March to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security and then to pass additional funding for ICE and Border Patrol through the budget reconciliation process to get around a Democratic filibuster.

A Senate GOP aide said that Republican senators were told that Johnson and President Trump would support the Senate bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security before they gave their consent to advance it last month.

Democrats have refused to fund ICE and Border Patrol unless Republicans agree to major immigration enforcement reforms, such as requiring federal officers to obtain judicial warrants before entering private homes and banning officers from wearing masks.

Johnson, however, told reporters on Wednesday that he would not advance the Senate bill to partially fund the Homeland Security Department until Republican senators first pass a budget reconciliation bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the next three and a half years.

House conservatives have vented their own frustration with Senate Republicans for agreeing to split off Department of Homeland Security funding from funding for other departments, arguing that decision has given Democrats more leverage in the standoff over ICE.

“I think the Senate keeps making mistakes, and I think we’re living with those mistakes every day,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leading member of the House Freedom Caucus.

“We shouldn’t have isolated DHS. Now here we are with isolating ICE and Border Patrol,” he said of the decision by GOP senators to pass a bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security but not the leading immigration enforcement agencies.

“But if the Senate is going to proceed, and they’re going to drive through this, because they just think they can assume we’re all voting for everything, I think that’s a mistake,” he added.

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) said House conservatives don’t feel comfortable about passing a partial Homeland Security funding bill while the funding for ICE and Border Patrol remain uncertain for the rest of Trump’s second term.

“If we can take a skinny reconciliation bill up first, then we’d be more comfortable with the Senate-passed funding bill. … But until then, it just makes more sense to do reconciliation overall and deal with it in one bill,” he said.

The “skinny” reconciliation bill being envisioned by Senate Republican leaders would fund ICE and Border Patrol for three and half years and cost between $65 billion and $70 billion.

GOP senators don’t want to publicly bash Johnson who is under tremendous pressure from the conservative House Freedom Caucus not to call up the Senate bill for a vote until the Senate first passes a budget reconciliation funding ICE and CBP.

“I try not to tell the House what to do or how to do it,” Thune told reporters Monday. “Obviously, the sooner we can get all those agencies funded, the better.”

But moving a bill under special budget reconciliation protections to avoid a Democratic filibuster could take another month.

White House budget director Russ Vought warned senators on Thursday that the Homeland Security Department is “disintegrating” because of the failure of Congress to fund it since Feb. 14.

Vought told senators at a Budget Committee hearing that he and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin are scrambling to keep federal workers from quitting en masse.

“There is no money for the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security,” Vought testified.

“As of right now, the Department of Homeland Security is disintegrating because the secretary and I are having to figure out ways to temporarily fund people’s paychecks so we don’t have people quit and embark on new careers,” Vought said.

The budget chief warned that staffing levels could collapse if Congress doesn’t soon find a way to find end the two-month Homeland Security shutdown.

“Some of the things we were seeing the weekend Secretary Mullin took office was incredibly concerning, we have to have a funding mechanism for the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security,” Vought warned.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, echoed Vought’s view that Congress needs to move as quickly as possible to address the growing crisis at the Homeland Security Department.

“Time is of the essence,” she said when asked about Vought’s testimony. “I certainly am not a fan of where we are in this process but we are where we are and we must figure out a pathway forward.”

Emily Brooks contributed.  

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