New Congress to inherit government shutdown in new year

WASHINGTON — A new Congress will be sworn in this week as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and inherit a partial government shutdown over the president’s demand for border wall funding.

A diverse majority of new lawmakers, including two from Nevada, will take their seats in the House on Thursday. Nevada will also see a new senator with Jacky Rosen moving from the House to give the state two female Democrats in the GOP-controlled upper chamber.

Republicans will maintain control of both chambers on New Year’s Eve, when leaders plan to open for business.

But without an agreement with President Donald Trump on a spending bill for homeland security that includes border wall funding, the issue is expected to be kicked to Thursday, when the 116th Congress begins.

Democrats have rejected outright Trump’s $5 billion request for border wall funding, which they call an inefficient use of taxpayer money. He claims that it is vital to stopping the flow of drugs and illegal immigration.

Trump has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which has furloughed 800,000 federal government workers. About half of those are deemed essential and are being asked to work without pay.

But Democratic leaders refer to Trump’s recent Oval Office boast that he “would be proud to shut down the government,” and they point to his failure to accept proposals put forth to keep the government running while negotiations continued on his request.

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told members there was unlikely to be “any progress to end the Trump shutdown” until Democrats take control.

“Until President Trump can publicly commit to a bipartisan resolution, there will be no agreement before January when the new House Democratic majority will swiftly pass legislation to re-open government,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues.

New Nevada representatives

Those colleagues include Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, two new House members from Southern Nevada who will be sworn in Thursday.

They join Reps. Dina Titus, a Democrat, and Mark Amodei, a Republican, both veteran lawmakers from Nevada.

Lee was elected to fill the seat vacated by Rosen, who ran for and won the Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Dean Heller. Horsford was elected to replace Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., who did not seek re-election after an Ethics Committee investigation was launched into allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against him.

Lee and Horsford are part of a “blue wave” that helped Democrats win 40 seats to take back control of the House after eight years of Republican rule. The Democratic gains in the midterm elections were seen mainly as a referendum on Trump’s presidency and the opposition to his policies by female voters.

A record 102 women, or nearly a quarter of the voting members, will serve in the House in the new Congress, according to the Pew Research Center.

The overwhelming majority of women in the House are Democrats. Pelosi said 60 percent of the Democratic caucus in the 116th Congress will be women, minorities and LGBTQ members.

Pelosi said “that beautiful diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power. And we’ll learn how we will work together with the constant reinvigoration of a new class.”

The Democratic caucus, though, includes many members who won seats in Republican-leaning districts and who distanced themselves in their campaigns from Pelosi, a politician as polarizing in public opinion polls as Trump if not more so.

The caucus also includes democratic socialists, like Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who wants to dismantle the seniority system put in place under Pelosi and established Democratic leaders.

Pelosi’s challenge

While Pelosi is virtually certain to win the votes to become speaker Thursday, she will be challenged to hold her caucus together, much like House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who had to corral fiscal conservatives, moderates and the socially conservative Freedom Caucus, which often rebelled against leadership.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., founder of the Freedom Caucus, forced the House to reject a bipartisan measure before Christmas and instead adopt a stopgap spending bill that included $5.7 billion for a border wall. His proposal lacked the necessary votes for passage in the Senate.

Meadows predicted last week that the partial government shutdown would last long past Thursday without Democratic concessions on wall funding.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Rosen will join Catherine Cortez Masto in the Democratic minority.

Cortez Masto will become the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s political arm that recruits and raises funds for Senate candidates in the 2020 election.

Republicans improved their Senate majority in the midterm elections, picking up two seats to give them 53 GOP members. There are 45 Democrats and two independents, who caucus with the Democratic minority.

The slim 53-47 majority is still seven votes shy of the 60-vote threshold needed to waive budget rules and move a spending bill to the floor for passage.

The 116th Congress could begin with a House bill to reopen the government that forces the Senate to act and puts pressure on the president, who has vowed to reject any bill that doesn’t include money for a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Trump to face scrutiny

For the first time in two years, the president and his administration will face stiff scrutiny and oversight of policies that were largely left unchallenged by the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

Incoming Democratic House leaders and committee chairmen have already vowed to subpoena witnesses and delve into controversies and policies in several agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Interior.

Further, the new House intelligence committee chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he will expand the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and ties to the Trump campaign.

An outside special counsel investigation into Russian meddling and the Trump campaign is expected to release its report on its findings early next year.

Trump has repeatedly called the investigation, which has already resulted in indictments and convictions of people who worked on the campaign, a “witch hunt.”

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