This week: Shutdown showdown looms over new Congress

Lawmakers are returning to Washington for the start of the 116th Congress with no end in sight to the partial government shutdown.

Though the new session doesn’t start until Thursday, the Senate is expected to return on Wednesday afternoon — the last day Republicans will control both chambers. The House has yet to flesh out any plans before Thursday, but outgoing GOP leadership is giving members 24 hours notice before any vote.

But with no signs of movement toward an agreement to fully reopen the government since Congress missed the Dec. 21 deadline, any progress is likely to wait until at least Thursday. Lawmakers and administration say they are not close to a deal that would fund roughly 25 percent of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security.

{mosads}Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, warned on Sunday that the partial shutdown “could last a long, long time” and that the negotiations are “at an impasse at the moment.”

“At the end of the day, all of this will end. We don’t know when, in negotiations. It’s not a question of who wins or loses. Nobody’s going to win this kind of game. Nobody wins in a shutdown. We all lose and we kind of look silly,” Shelby told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

The administration has tried to shift the blame to Democrats, including playing up the idea of a split between members of Democratic leadership. Trump, in a tweet over the weekend, said that he was in “White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal on Border Security.”

But Trump — who said earlier this month that he would accept the “mantle” of a shutdown — also indicated late last week and over the weekend that Republicans were using the “hard way,” a shutdown, to try to get the wall funding, and that he believed the fight will benefit him in his 2020 campaign.

“For those that naively ask why didn’t the Republicans get approval to build the Wall over the last year, it is because IN THE SENATE WE NEED 10 DEMOCRAT VOTES, and they will gives us ‘NONE’ for Border Security! Now we have to do it the hard way, with a Shutdown. Too bad,” Trump said in a tweet on Saturday.

Trump separately said in a tweet late last week that Democrats “may have the 10 Senate votes, but we have the issue, Border Security. 2020!”

The crux of the entrenched stalemate on funding part of the government is money for Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump has demanded $5 billion for the wall, an amount approved by House Republicans earlier this month.

But that amount is dead on arrival in the Senate. Trump and Republicans will lose control a key source of leverage on Thursday when Democrats take back control of the House.

House Democrats will likely quickly take up a clean continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government, as House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) is expected to take back the Speaker’s gavel.

Incoming Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is reportedly telling members that they are “expected to be present and voting” on Jan. 3 on government funding legislation. A spokesman for Pelosi pledged in a recent tweet that Democrats would “act swiftly to end the Trump Shutdown” and advocate for a policy that includes “strong and smart border security.”

{mossecondads}The floor drama will be the first chance for the new House majority to flex their political muscles after attempts by Democratic lawmakers to force votes on funding legislation that did not include funding for Trump’s border wall were blocked by GOP leadership over the holidays.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) noted that they tried to offer a Senate-passed stopgap bill to fund part of the government through Feb. 8 but were blocked, adding that Democrats had “already compromised” on the border.

“These are the Republican — they’re in the majority — their bills and we’re willing to vote to fund them at the Senate-passed bill levels … [Speaker] Paul Ryan [R-Wis.] refused to put it on the floor… [Republicans] have got a history of using the shutdown of government as a strategy to get what they want. We are fully prepared to support the bill that came over from the Senate,” Hoyer said.

Passing either a short-term continuing resolution or a larger bill to fund the remaining 25 percent of the federal government through Sept. 30, the end of the 2019 fiscal year, would kick the fight back to the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has publicly taken a back seat in the shutdown fight, arguing in the wake of the partial closure that working out an agreement was between Trump, whose signature they need, and Democrats, whose votes are needed.

But if the House was able to pass a bill it would add new political pressure on McConnell, who has warned repeatedly against shutting down the government. But moving a bill that didn’t have Trump’s support would open up himself and other Republican senators to attacks from the mercurial president.

McConnell has hinted Trump’s support is needed for a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. And GOP senators say they think it’s unlikely the chamber would move forward on a bill without the president, after Trump caught them flat-footed earlier this month when he rejected the Senate-passed CR.

“I think Sen. McConnell our leader has already addressed that. That said that he would not even take up the bill until he found some compromise that the president would agree to sign. So we’re going to be at an impasse. That would be probably an empty gesture, but that goes on in Washington every day,” Shelby said, asked what would happen if the House passed the bill early next month.

Democrats have warned that $1.3 billion is their cap on negotiations and that it would go toward fencing, not a concrete wall. Outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly told the Los Angeles Times that the administration had moved away from the concept of a literal wall early in the Trump administration.

Speaker vote

Pelosi is expected to be voted in as the next Speaker on Thursday.

The California Democrat secured the 218 votes needed on the floor after striking a deal with a group of rebel Democrats — led by Reps. Seth Moulton (Mass.), Tim Ryan (Ohio) and Kathleen Rice (N.Y.), Ed Perlmutter (Colo.), Bill Foster (Ill.) and Linda Sánchez (Calif.) — ensuring she would term-limit herself out of her leadership role. Under the deal Pelosi would step aside as Speaker by 2022.

Pelosi won the nomination for Speaker in caucus in late November in a 203-32 secret-ballot vote. The margin would have been enough to block her from becoming Speaker, but the House Democratic leader has worked furiously to lock down support, cut deals and pick off floated opponents.

Upwards of a dozen Democrats have vowed not to support Pelosi on the floor, including incoming freshman Reps. Max Rose (N.Y.), Abigail Spanberger (Va.), Joe Cunningham (S.C.) and Ben McAdams (Utah). Pelosi can afford to lose 17 votes on the floor.

New members sworn in

New members in both the House and Senate are slated to be sworn in on Jan. 3, eight in the Senate and 100 non-incumbent winners in the lower chamber. Sixty-three of the new House members are Democrats.

Senate Republicans, who are expanding their majority from 51 to 53 seats, will swear in six new members including former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who lost her Senate bid in November but was appointed to the seat formerly held by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is delaying his swearing in until Friday.

Sens.-elect Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who flipped seats previously held by Republicans, will also be sworn in.

Pelosi canceled her planned new member reception scheduled at the National Building Museum in the wake of the shutdown, Politico first reported.