Senate rejects bills to fund border wall, end government shutdown

WASHINGTON —Dueling partisan bills — one to fund President Donald Trump’s border wall and a Democratic measure to reopen government for two weeks — failed in the Senate on Thursday, sending the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history into a 35th day.

Despite defeat of both bills, lawmakers in both major political parties were hopeful the failure would provide new impetus to reach a solution that could open shuttered federal departments against dire warnings of economic chaos that could occur if the shutdown continues.

Indeed, Senate leaders huddled immediately after the votes to talk about a way forward. One item being discussed was a possible down payment on a border wall.

Trump told reporters that if the leaders “come to a reasonable agreement, I would support it, yes.” But he did not rule out declaring a national emergency to get wall funding, a move that would likely draw a legal challenge.

Late Thursday, CNN reported that the White House was preparing a draft proclamation for Trump to declare a national emergency along the southern border.

The Senate bill on Trump’s border proposal, outlined in a speech last week, included $5.7 billion for a border wall, as well as temporary extended protections from deportation for undocumented immigrants brought in this country as children, the so-called “Dreamers.”

That bill failed to get the 60-votes needed to cut off a filibuster and died 51-47, with two conservative lawmakers, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah voting with Democrats. Sen. Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to break ranks and vote with the GOP.

Trump’s plan was initially panned by conservatives and liberals alike, for different reasons. Conservatives called his temporary protections for undocumented children an “amnesty.” Liberals oppose a symbolic “wall” they have termed immoral and ineffective.

Democrats’ bill defeated

A second bill by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to open the government until Feb. 8, and continue negotiations on border security, failed, 52-44, with six Republican lawmakers voting with Democrats to reopen the government.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto voted with Democrats on both bills.

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., did not vote and was in Nevada following doctor’s orders to recuperate following a fall this week in Las Vegas at a Martin Luther King parade that left her with a fractured wrist, a spokesman said.

Cortez Masto said the Democratic bill would have opened government and provided checks to furloughed federal workers in Nevada and throughout the country..

Instead, she said Republicans have doubled down on the “president’s false choice between building an expensive, ineffective border wall and ending this manufactured crisis.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said border structures have worked for past presidents from both parties.

He accused Democrats of being recalcitrant and refusing to negotiate with a president who has moved from “a big wall — all along the border — to a barrier only when needed.”

Trump, however, has continued to demand a border wall, and used the slayings of four people in Northern Nevada and the arrest of an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador as the need for a “powerful wall.”

But the defeat of his border proposal in the Senate, and the Democratic measure to reopen government, places pressure on Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to find common ground following a week of gamesmanship over the State of the Union speech venue.

Pelosi rescinded an invitation to Trump to give the speech in the House while the government remains shutdown. After exploring an alternative site, Trump agreed to give the speech in the House on a later date after the shutdown ends.

Pelosi told a weekly news conference she thanked the president “for recognizing it is inappropriate” to have a State of the Union address in the House while people are missing a paycheck.

She said Democrats were willing to continue negotiations with the president.

“We have met. The last time was a photo op so the president could leave the room,” she said of the White House meeting earlier this month where the president left the negotiations and declared, on social media, that talks with Pelosi and Schumer were “a waste of time.”

House Democrats’ proposal

House Democrats are working on a proposal that would increase funding for border security by more than the $1.3 billion originally included in a bipartisan spending bill the president rejected in December, prompting the government shutdown.

The increased funding eyed by Democrats would include money for technology, fencing, immigration judges and drones, but not for a border wall, a key Trump campaign pledge that he famously said Mexico would finance.

About 800,000 federal workers in various departments will miss a second paycheck Friday due to the shutdown, including about 3,500 in Nevada.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also released statistics Thursday that showed $2.3 billion in government contracts to small businesses at risk due to the shutdown, including $9.3 million to 634 small business contractors in Nevada.

Government officials and unions warn of dire consequences in aviation, agriculture, housing and federal courts from a continued shutdown. Economists say the closure of the government also poses threats to the nation’s and world economy.

Many Transportation Security Administration agents staffing airports, like McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, are deemed essential and working without pay — a hardship underscored by federal workers who have applied for federal assistance or received help from food banks.

Cortez Masto and Rosen wrote to Homeland Security and Transportation secretaries this week asking how they plan to address security given the uncertainty of a resolution and workforce capacity issues and airports.

“Safe and efficient airport operations are vital to the careers and livelihood of a wide variety of Nevadans who have jobs in the hospitality and tourism industries,” Cortez Masto and Rosen said in a letter sent Jan. 23 to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

Public transportation in the Washington metro area was also facing cuts due to the closure, and the Department of Agriculture again warned states that federal funds for food stamps and other nutritional programs would expire in March.

Opinion polls, meanwhile, show public support for Trump’s border wall eroding, with a clear majority of those surveyed saying the government shutdown is a bigger concern than a border wall.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday also showed that 51 percent of registered voters think Trump is responsible for the shutdown, and 34 percent of those surveyed casting blame on congressional Democrats and 9 percent blaming both. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.