House Republicans bristle at Senate-driven DHS plan

House Republicans are not pleased with what is shaping up to be a Senate-driven plan to end the record-long Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, bristling at again being told what to do by the upper chamber and raising objections that could be land mines for the proposal.

GOP leaders want to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for three years via a “skinny” party-line reconciliation bill to speed it through the process.

But some members are tossing out the idea of adding other priorities to the bill, as they’re skeptical that they could be addressed later.

House Republicans already lashed out at the prospect of passing a bipartisan Senate bill to fund the rest of DHS, demanding that the party-line reconciliation bill for ICE and Border Patrol funding pass first. And some want to fund the full department in reconciliation without breaking off ICE, partly to punish Democrats who refused to fund immigration enforcement without significant reforms.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appears to have accepted his members’ demands on the sequencing, if not the content, of the reconciliation bill.

“We’re going to have to do a skinny reconciliation package — as it’s called here in the halls — and it’s going to come from the Senate,” Johnson said in a press conference Wednesday.

The Senate is preparing to vote next week on a budget blueprint that will kick off the process, which will then have to clear the House before the Senate irons out more details. Johnson said he expected the budget resolution to be sent to the House “by middle to end of next week.”

“We’re going to move it as expeditiously as possible. We’re going to do our part and fund those essential functions of the government, and then we’ll do the rest of Homeland Security,” Johnson said, indicating that he will meet his members’ demands to move the Senate bill on the rest of DHS only after progress on the reconciliation piece has been made.

But despite the Senate’s charging ahead, members of the House Freedom Caucus are still calling to fund the entirety of DHS through the reconciliation process, rebelling against the Senate. 

“The Senate doesn’t get — they’re not the only say in this,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), policy chair of the House Freedom Caucus. “I would strongly recommend that they talk to all of us who have a vote — unless they want to go try to patch together votes with Democrats.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) similarly said he would prefer the House to take the “lead” on a second reconciliation bill that would include funding for all of DHS.

Some conservatives are also calling to include other priorities in the next reconciliation bill, which moves under a process that bypasses the Senate filibuster. GOP leaders have indicated they want to see those priorities in a third, separate reconciliation bill this fall.

Roy told The Hill that he doesn’t believe there will be a “round three” on reconciliation.

“I think we are likely only to be able to have one other bite at the apple. I’m not saying a third is impossible. I’m just saying, look, we’re trying to get appropriations done. You’re going to get to July, then it’s August, then it’s fall, and come on,” Roy said. “So my view is, if we need to get DHS funded, let’s get on that horse. Let’s add some other things to it. Let’s move it forward. So you want to deal with defense, deal with it there. Figure out how to pay for things.”

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) similarly said that “the Senate is being very short-sighted” in its approach to funding DHS, and that a “narrowly tailored” reconciliation bill would be both “pathetic” and “disappointing.”

He added that he would want health care reforms in the bill. 

“We are going to disappoint the American people. We have an opportunity. We do not need to be just coasting into the midterms. This is something that — either this has to happen in reconciliation two, or … we have to do reconciliation three before the midterms,” Burlison said.

Adding more items to a reconciliation bill, however, would almost certainly slow its passage through Congress as Republicans fight over priorities and spending levels.

Taken together, the objections could create headaches for Johnson, who will be able afford to lose no more than one or two votes on the party-line measure.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said the problem with the Senate strategy is that it’s “setting a precedent that you’re then going to pick and choose what you’re going to fund and what you’re not going to fund in the future.”

Some moderates, meanwhile, have expressed skepticism about using the reconciliation process for appropriations, arguing that funding the entirety of DHS through this mechanism would be a step too far.

“I think that generally appropriations should be done through the appropriations process,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), an independent who caucuses with House Republicans. “So, I’d be reluctant to encourage more of the process to be done through reconciliation.”

Johnson is in tune with his members raging against the Senate, having done so himself just last month when he rejected the bulk-of-DHS Senate bill as a “joke” and led the charge to reject it — but he accepted the plan to fund ICE and Border Patrol in reconciliation when President Trump endorsed it.

Johnson explained his shift in the press conference.

“The reason that we spiked it, and the reason when it [was] sent over last time and I said it was nonsense because it was concocted in the middle of the night, and sent over to us, and it zeroed out funding for those two essential functions I just named. And we couldn’t go along with that,” Johnson said.

“We have to make sure that those functions are funded, and then we’ll do the rest of that job. But the Democrats have done this to the American people.”

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