With deadline looming, House and Senate deadlocked on DHS funding
The House and Senate remained deadlocked on how to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Thursday with less than 48 hours before the agency will go without funding.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, reached an agreement with Senate Democrats to pass a standalone bill to fund DHS while taking up Republican concerns about President Obama's immigration policies separately. House Republicans added riders to their version of the $40 billion DHS bill that would block Mr. Obama from removing the threat of deportation for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Senate Democrats have insisted that should not be part of any funding measure.
A vote on the Senate funding bill could happen as early as Thursday afternoon.
But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, seemingly aware that many members in his conference would not vote for a clean funding bill, said once again that the House has already voted to fund the department, and it's time for the Senate to act.
He is still mum on what the House would do if the Senate sent back a funding bill free of any immigration provisions. When one reporter asked him about it at a news conference Thursday, Boehner made a series of kissing noises and said, "When we make decisions I'll let you know."
In a separate news conference Thursday morning, the top Democrats in the House and Senate, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, indicated they would resist any attempts by the House to reattach the immigration provisions once the Senate strips them out.
"It's a waste of time," Reid said. "If they send over a bill with all the riders in it, they've shut down the government. We are not going to play games."
He deflected a question about whether Democrats would agree to a shorter spending bill, called a continuing resolution, to give Boehner and McConnell further time to negotiate.
But Pelosi said House Democrats were not prepared to let that happen.
"We can't get involved in five days, seven days and all of that nonsense. Let's just get the job done on time," she said.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was in the Capitol Thursday discussing the funding measure with members of Congress, agreed a short-term solution was not the answer.
"We need a fully funded Department of Homeland Security in these challenging times. That is my view," he told reporters. "We need a full year appropriations bill for the department to fund all of our key missions."
Democrats - and even some Republicans - have argued that a recent court decision that blocked the start of the administration's immigration program should give House Republicans the cover to vote for a clean spending bill.
Boehner, however, said it's not.
"I think there's a role for Congress to play in defending the Constitution and upholding the rule of law, and we intend to do that," he said.
Boehner and McConnell met privately Wednesday afternoon, but neither has publicly announced a way out of the impasse.
"We have two different institutions that don't have the same body temperature every day and so, we tend to try to work to narrow the differences. But sometimes, there are differences," Boehner told reporters. "You know, the House, by nature and by design, is a hell of a lot more rambunctious place than the Senate."