According to a left-wing news site, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is ready to reprise her role as lead compromiser in the looming government shutdown fight.
Democrats are scrambling for leverage ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline on a $1.2 trillion funding package. The bill funds the departments of Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and State.
The sticking point is DHS, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Senate Democrats want to use their ability to filibuster to force the GOP to accept changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), want a prohibition on federal officers wearing masks. They also want federal immigration agents to be required to wear body cameras and an end to roving patrols. Additioanlly, they’re also seeking to require immigration agents to obtain new warrants from a judge before arresting illegal immigrants previously determined to be in the U.S. unlawfully.
Shaheen and her colleague, Sen. Maggie Hassan, have said publicly they intend to vote against the full budget package if there is no deal on DHS. Their statements came in response to the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. Anger over that event has inspired some Democrats to demand ICE be abolished entirely.
None of the four Democrats in New Hampshire’s federal delegation has joined those calls.
Instead, HuffPost reports, “Some centrists in the caucus said they’d be willing to consider a short-term funding patch to keep DHS funded at its current levels while the negotiations play out. Funding the agency without putting restraints on ICE could diminish Democrats’ leverage, risking another backlash from the party’s base.”
Among those “centrists” is Shaheen.
“That’s a reasonable approach, because what we need are reforms for how ICE and, obviously, how some of the other agencies within DHS operate. So that would give us a chance to address that,” Shaheen said.
Shaheen and Hassan were among the eight Senate Democrats who voted to end the last government shutdown without securing a deal to extend COVID-era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
Shaheen’s comments on Wednesday mark a significant change in tone from remarks earlier this week in which she said “urgent reforms” are needed at the Department of Homeland Security in light of Pretti’s death.
Shaheen faced major backlash from members of her own party — including her daughter, congressional candidate Stefany Shaheen — for allegedly caving during the Affordable Care Act fight.
Although it would be only a partial government shutdown, Shaheen may be aware that the chances of Republicans budging are slim.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said he is playing his cards close to the chest when it comes to splitting up the bills. “These are all hypotheticals at this point, and I will reserve optionality to consider that,” Thune told reporters on Wednesday.
Republicans argue the existing six-bill package is the product of months of bipartisan negotiations and includes multiple provisions Democrats supported. The bill passed the House by a vote of 341-88.
Even Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) previously praised the bill as advancing Democrats’ agenda of cutting ICE’s budget, only to later come out in opposition.
“Democrats defeated Republicans’ hard-fought push to give ICE an even bigger annual budget, successfully cut ICE’s detention budget and capacity, cut CBP’s budget by over $1 billion, and secured important, although insufficient, new constraints on DHS,” Murray said earlier in a statement.
After Shaheen’s prominent role in ending the previous shutdown, progressive NH-01 candidate state Rep. Heath Howard made headlines by shouting at the senior senator during a party fundraiser, calling her out for cutting a deal. Howard placed second behind Stefany Shaheen in the latest University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll.
Given the intensity surrounding the Pretti shooting within the progressive community, Shaheen may not receive a warm welcome from fellow Democrats if she cuts a deal that lets ICE off the hook.