A Short Shutdown (Hopefully) on Deck
As we are all following, the White House reached a deal with Senate Democrats to pass five of the remaining six bills to fund the government on a full-year basis (Labor-HHS, Defense, Transportation-HUD, Financial Services-General Government, and State-Foreign Operations) while passing a two-week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Senate is about to start working through amendments (listed below) before voting on final passage. Of course, even if it passes, that package must go through the House, meaning the government will begin shutdown processes over the weekend. In the best-case scenario, the House will quickly pass the funding agreement on Monday and the government will be fully up-and-running again later that day, but there’s enough complications on the House-side that we’ll be holding our breath when the vote happens.
Amendments to be considered tonight are:
Sen. Paul 4272 -- strike funding for refugee and entrant assistance;
Sen. Schmitt 4241 -- strike National Endowment for Democracy funding
Sen. Lee 4286 -- strike funding for US African Development Foundation;
Sen. Lee 4236 -- strike earmarks;
Sen. Lee 4234 -- strike Schumer earmark for New Immigrant Community Empowerment
Sen. Sanders 4290 -- repeal OBBBA ICE funding and redirect to Medicaid (passage set at 60 votes)
Merkley 4287 -- ban on pocket rescissions
Two points on these amendments:
The amendments to cut funding for foreign aid programs could be seen as proxy votes on future forthcoming rescission packages to be sent by OMB Director Russ Vought for those and other foreign aid accounts.
Sen. Merkley has fought valiantly against pocket rescissions since the threat emerged from the Trump Administration and it will be interesting to see if any votes are gained from the last time this amendment came up when the first shutdown ended in November (and failed on a party-line vote, 47-53).
Data call delays
Last week, OMB Director Vought targeted 14 states (including D.C.) controlled by Democrats with a data call to agencies for any funding to state and local governments, nonprofits and universities in the state. We’ve heard from sources familiar with the data call that OMB did not circulate an FAQ doc to agencies as expected and what data that’s been received so far is of low quality given lack of specificity. With shutdown brinksmanship at hand, OMB may be pumping the brakes on this project.
Admin loses again on apportionment transparency
After months spent violating the law by refusing to provide statutorily-required information about agency funding decisions, OMB was beaten in court a second time this week, and forced to provide more data to the public.
The Administration had previously made some apportionment data public – by court order – but still withheld agency spend plans by not disclosing footnotes for many apportionments. The plaintiffs alleged 131 spend plans were being kept secret from the public.
