House eyes Tuesday vote to end brief government shutdown

House Republican leaders plan to vote Tuesday to pass a government funding package approved by the Senate, three days after a shutdown began. Funding lapsed Saturday amid divisions in Congress over changes to the Department of Homeland Security after agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pushed the vote back by one day after, he said, Democrats conveyed to him that they won’t provide enough votes to skip the procedural hurdles. “I think we’ll get it done by tomorrow,” Johnson said Monday.

The bill’s prospects trended positively through the day after President Donald Trump threw his support behind it and a key Democrat endorsed it. Barring a mass exodus among Republicans, it is likely to pass Tuesday as long as the GOP sticks together on the procedural “rule” to call the vote.

“We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY. There can be NO CHANGES at this time,” President Trump wrote on social media Monday.

“We had a caucus meeting yesterday,” Jeffries told reporters. “There was a diversity of perspectives about how to move forward on this particular bill.” The bill, which passed the Senate 71-29, would complete funding for the government to the tune of more than $1 trillion — except DHS, which will carry on with a two-week stopgap bill.

Senior House Democrats are divided over the bill. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, which oversees DHS, led a letter with 12 Democrats calling on colleagues to reject the bill.

“Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive another dollar in funding,” Thompson and the other Democrats wrote. “This is what our constituents elected us to do — to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law.”

But Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said Monday in the Rules Committee that she “will support this package. She said the short-term DHS measure “gives us time and it gives us leverage to secure the protections that we need for our communities.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the White House would negotiate, suggesting Republicans will accept what Trump agrees to. But he cautioned that some of the Democratic demands will be difficult for the GOP to swallow.

The Democratic demands include putting body cameras on agents, a move that DHS announced Monday, as well as requiring judicial warrants, sending CBP back to the border and forcing officers to wear identification and show their faces — without masks — in conducting operations.

“Obviously, there will be some back-and-forth and give-and-take on it,” Thune told NBC News on Monday. “The issue of masks is a very controversial one. The issue of ‘sanctuary’ cities is also a very controversial one. So we’ll see where it goes. But as I said before, it’s going to be really important that the White House and the Senate Democrats be negotiating this.”