Who Would Want to Lead on Capitol Hill?

Some six weeks ago, the newly re-elected Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell promised that he and his colleagues would not shut down the federal government.  Well, we all know the relationship between politicians and promises. “Ending in tears,” comes to mind.

At the moment, the Congressional legislators are on a break. When they return next week, there will be only four days to approve next year’s funding of the Department of Homeland Security, the massive agency created by the George W Bush administration. There is a problem. The DHS budget is at risk, not because the Democrats in Congress object, nor because the executive branch might not approve it. The problem arises because GOP Senate conservatives want to roll back President Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration. They can do this by adding a rider to the funding bill, even though the rider may have no relationship to the content of the bill.

Republican conservatives are determined that DHS, which seeks to protect the security of all Americans within USA, will not be funded unless the legislation overrules President Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration. These executive orders temporarily prevent the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. I emphasise that the effect of the orders is to defer the deportations of people, many of whom have lived, worked and paid taxes in America for many years

The House of Representatives has passed a DHS funding bill which includes provisions striking down the executive orders on immigration. However, Senate Democrats, some of whom opposed the executive orders, have blocked the House-passed legislation in the Senate, using repeated filibusters. So, McConnell is trapped within a legislative box that he had vowed to avoid. He knows that government shutdowns damage the US political party which causes them.

McConnell is on record that he is determined not to repeat the mistakes of previous years when the Republicans brought the federal government to a standstill.  On the day after he won re-election, McConnell said: “Let me make it clear: There will be no government shutdowns.” Yet, last week, McConnell acknowledged the Senate was stuck and he was in need of House Speaker John Boehner’s help. Sadly for McConnell, the Speaker was not in a charitable mood. Boehner said he had no interest in passing revised legislation through the House just to draw Democratic support in the Senate.

A shutdown of one agency would not cause the same disruption as the October 2013 shutdown of the federal government, which resulted in national parks closing, furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and a general sense of disgust with Washington dysfunction. If no deal is reached, the Department of Homeland Security would deem many workers essential, particularly those overseeing border security, airline safety, disaster responses and domestic terror assessments. Yet even those federal workers would have no assurance of being paid.

Public reaction would probably mirror ­the events of October 2013, when Republicans tried to force Mr. Obama to accept a funding plan that would have gutted his landmark health-care law. The ensuing shutdown badly damaged public support for Republicans, leaving them in a hole that took them almost a year to recover from.

McConnell is adamant about not repeating the mistake. “I don’t think a shutdown of the department whose purpose is to secure our homeland is a good idea for anybody,” Some McConnell advisers suggest that a brief lapse in funding for one federal agency would not break his no-shutdowns promise. Talk about stretching the truth! McConnell has made no recent public mention of the DHS showdown, sticking to his comments that Speaker Boehner will have to make the next move.

The DHS has been given a short-term extension of funds until Feb. 27, buying time for McConnell and Boehner to come up with an escape plan. None has yet appeared, nor from the sound of Boehner’s pronouncements will the House offer help. I had to smile when I read the comments of Senator John Cornyn, McConnell’s top lieutenant on the leadership team. “I have every confidence we will meet the deadline, one way or the other. Just how, I can’t tell you right this minute.”

Democrats said even a small-scale shutdown, so soon on McConnell’s watch, would hurt him politically. They believe it would set a precedent, with the far right wing pushing him around in the same manner that House conservatives have backed Boehner into corners he wanted to avoid.

There is time to avert a shutdown, but it almost certainly involves capitulation to the Democrats. One possibility is to remove the immigration sections from the House and Senate bills and pass a clean funding bill. However, such a move would probably prompt a huge backlash from conservative Republicans. Another option is to pass a short-term extension of DHS funding for a few more weeks or months though kicking the can down the road is no real solution. There is also the choice of letting DHS funding dry up and see what happens.

If nothing else, this episode shows how difficult it is for Congress to pass legislation, even when one political party is in control of both Houses of Congress.