DHS funding and a shutdown: What you need to know

IN THIS EDITION

The shutdown cometh

Vault: The GOP’s tax season worries

A big redistricting week in the DMV

What we’re watching

THE TOP

The shutdown cometh

Happy Monday morning.

The Senate and the White House are suddenly in the middle of the most serious political crisis of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The deadly shootings this month by federal agents of two Minneapolis residents — Renee Good and, on Saturday, Alex Pretti — have sparked a nationwide furor that’s causing even some Hill Republicans to call for a full investigation and congressional hearings.

It’s also less than a week before the deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other major departments and agencies, including the Pentagon. A partial government shutdown would begin on Friday night if the impasse isn’t resolved.

Saturday’s horrific shooting — and the Trump administration’s handling of the aftermath — galvanized Senate Democrats, who quickly united on a strategy to block the six-bill FY2026 funding package unless the DHS funding, which includes ICE, is stripped out and renegotiated. This would require the House to vote again. And that’s a serious problem since the chamber is on recess all week.

A big shift? House and Senate Democrats want fundamental changes to how ICE operates in cities around the country. Trump and top administration officials have, up until now, shown few signs of changing course in his nationwide immigration crackdown.

However, Trump told the Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey Sunday night that the Pretti shooting will be reviewed and the Minnesota-focused ICE surge will end “at some point.” Inside the administration, there’s a stark realization that the Minneapolis shootings have been catastrophic politically, and they’re losing ground on an issue that Republicans have dominated.

“At some point we will leave,” Trump said of the huge ICE operation in Minnesota, which began in the wake of a massive welfare scandal involving Somali-affiliated organizations. “We’ve done, they’ve done a phenomenal job,” Trump added.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are pressing ahead with the six-bill funding package — for now.

Yet Senate Democrats are even more steel-spined than they were during the fall’s record-setting government shutdown. Democrats believe pushing back against Trump’s increasingly harsh immigration crackdown is a winning position that most of the nation will agree with.

“I didn’t think anything could unite us more than health care did. I was wrong,” a Democratic senator told us after a caucus-wide conference call Sunday night.

In a sign of the shifting dynamics, the White House and Senate Republicans have reached out to Senate Democratic leaders in an attempt to head off another shutdown. Democrats say the GOP has yet to offer any acceptable solutions.

In Democrats’ view, the Senate can pass everything else and renegotiate DHS. Remember that the One Big Beautiful Bill included tens of billions of dollars for DHS anyway, so ICE is flush with cash. However, a DHS shutdown would impact FEMA and the Coast Guard as well.

It’s too early to say how this new impasse could play out. Trump is calling for Congress to end “sanctuary cities” via legislation, something that isn’t going anywhere in the Senate.

The real issue right now is that Democrats aren’t going to vote for DHS funding in any form. So even a short-term stopgap funding bill that includes DHS is probably out of the question.

Importantly, this larger funding package also has billions of dollars in earmarks for lawmakers from both parties and chambers. Additionally, beyond DHS, the five other FY2026 bills include tons of Democratic priorities, especially on the domestic side. No one wants to let this massive bill stall.

The real challenge is the clock. The Senate is in session today for procedural reasons, but the snow has pushed the first votes of the week to Tuesday. Without a time agreement, the initial procedural vote on the funding package wouldn’t be until Thursday.

The House is out of session until Feb. 2 — three days after the funding deadline. If the Senate does anything other than pass the six-bill package as-is — which is extremely unlikely — the measure would need to go back to the House.

A time agreement is necessary in the Senate to pass any version of the package before Friday, which gives Democrats even more leverage.

One option is to demand votes on whether to retain each individual title of the bill. In this scenario, if all 47 Democrats vote to scrap the DHS funding bill, GOP votes would be needed to do so. At this point, it’s not clear that there’d be any. Even the Republicans who have expressed concern about Saturday’s shooting haven’t gone as far as calling for the DHS funding to be separated out and renegotiated.

Inside Dems’ rapid shift. Consider how quickly things changed. Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was saying there wouldn’t be a shutdown and that the bipartisan funding negotiations were going well. Seven Democrats voted for DHS funding in the House despite massive pressure from the party base.

Even as of Friday, when several Senate Democrats had already come out in opposition to the DHS funding bill, leadership aides in both parties believed Republicans would be able to pick off enough Democrats to pass the funding package.

We mention all of this to underscore how different this shutdown fight is from the last one. Democrats spent months laying the groundwork for the October-November shutdown to make it all about health care.

For this one, Democrats are messaging around it on the fly. Senate Democrats united quickly behind the hardline strategy. Even Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine), who loathe shutdowns and broke from the caucus on the last one, support Schumer’s stance.

The House. House Republican leaders haven’t considered bringing the chamber back into session. What you’ll hear from Republican leaders is that they have done their job and the Senate needs to pass their bill.

— Andrew Desiderio, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

Vault: The GOP’s tax season worries

The IRS kicks off tax season today in an unusual position — the agency is being run by leaders juggling multiple jobs in the wake of a brutal year of turnover and without a confirmed commissioner.

The Trump administration has made it widespread practice to have high-profile leaders wear multiple hats. That’s drawn little pushback from Republicans in Congress.

That’s largely true for the IRS too. Most GOP tax writers we spoke to said they have faith in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the acting IRS commissioner following the firing of Billy Long, and Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who’s in a newly created CEO role. But several told us it’s not their ideal situation on the brink of the IRS’s busiest stretch.

“It’d be better if we had a commissioner, but this can’t affect the tax season,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “Everybody’s got to do their taxes, and it’s got to be done under the best conditions we have.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said that “ideally we’d have a commissioner in place, but I have confidence in Scott [Bessent],” adding Bessent’s able to handle multiple jobs.

A messy tax filing season could be a particularly acute political problem for Republicans. They’re banking on taxpayers soon feeling the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the centerpiece of their midterm messaging. Any problems with implementing that law will be a self-inflicted political wound.

The IRS’s long year. The IRS had seven different commissioners in 2025, including Long’s stunningly short tenure. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s mass layoff campaign swept through the IRS, and Congress passed a major tax law.

Bessent and Bisignano’s leadership appears to have brought a level of order to the IRS after all the turmoil, but the 2026 filing season will test it. That’s especially true if there’s a partial government shutdown later this week.

“We need an IRS commissioner, but as long as they’re doing their job … and they’re doing it right now,” House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Bessent and Bisignano are “very competent, and they are doing the job.”

For Democrats, the leadership situation is among many concerns about the IRS under President Donald Trump.

“I think they are leaderless, but unfortunately, they’re staffless too,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said, citing layoffs and budget cuts.

— Laura Weiss

REDISTRICTING WARS

A big redistricting week in the DMV

Two key mid-Atlantic states are scheduled to make major redistricting moves this week.

House Democrats are leaning hard on Maryland and Virginia to help cancel out Republicans’ final major redistricting push in Florida. But neither state has had a smooth process, and time is running out.

At stake in Virginia are four congressional seats. Voters will be required to give the Democratic-controlled legislature permission to draw a new congressional map, and the state lawmakers need to decide what that map will look like.

In Maryland, the top state Senate Democrat is standing in the way of a one-seat pickup. But the pressure campaign on him has only just begun.

Here’s what to expect this week.

Virginia. It could be map week in the Old Dominion. Virginia Democrats said they planned to release their proposed new map by the end of the month, ahead of the April 21 referendum vote.

The big question has been whether Democrats will shoot for a 10D-1R map or a 9D-2R one. Virginia Democratic leaders want to be more aggressive than some of their congressional colleagues, and the state leaders are the ones proposing the map. But the Virginia House of Delegates and state Senate need to agree on a specific map and that could hold up the release.

Beyond the map, Democrats are carefully monitoring a legal challenge to their redistricting gambit that’s currently before a circuit court judge. Republicans are pointing to a Virginia code provision that requires a proposed constitutional amendment to be posted publicly 90 days before the next election of the House of Delegates. Virginia Democrats didn’t do this for their redistricting proposal prior to the 2025 elections.

Virginia Democrats counter that while the provision remains in Virginia’s legal code, it was taken out of the state’s constitution and therefore no longer applies.

This court decision could throw a curveball at Democrats’ redistricting dreams.

Maryland. The Maryland House of Delegates released a proposed constitutional amendment to implement a new congressional map for 2026. There will be a hearing on the map on Tuesday and it is expected to pass when put up for a floor vote, possibly as soon as this week.

If and when it passes, you can expect the pressure on Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson to skyrocket.

Addressing reporters Friday, Ferguson repeatedly refused to commit to putting redistricting on the Senate floor. Ferguson said that his main focus is on affordability.

One notable part of the proposed amendment: it kicks the map into place for 2026 but it allows Maryland voters to decide whether they want it to stay for 2028 and 2030.

The proposed new map would likely net Democrats all of the state’s eight seats and boot Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.). Rep. April McClain Delaney’s (D-Md.) seat in western Maryland would become more favorable for Democrats.

An open 3rd District seat that connects the Baltimore area with the northern section of the Eastern Shore is the most competitive in the state. Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have won it by nearly nine points in 2024.

– Ally Mutnick

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What we’re watching

Tuesday: The Senate Intelligence Committee will have a hearing on the nomination of Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd to be the director of the National Security Agency.

The Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a markup of the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act.

Wednesday: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will have a hearing on the federal environmental review and permitting process.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will have a hearing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Venezuela. Don’t miss our Sunday preview of what to expect from the high-profile hearing.

The Federal Reserve will announce its latest interest rate decision at 2 p.m. Fed Chair Jay Powell will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Senate Commerce Committee will have a hearing on the impact of ticket sales practices and bot resales on concert fans. Among the witnesses will be Kid Rock.

– Jake Sherman

… AND THERE’S MORE

Endorsement corner. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) is endorsing Michigan state Sen. Sean McCann in his bid to unseat GOP Rep. Bill Huizenga (Mich.).

The Blue Dog PAC is backing two candidates in Texas: Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, who is challenging GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in South Texas; and Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia, who is running in a newly drawn San Antonio-area seat.

Leaders We Deserve, a group founded by David Hogg to elect young Democrats, is backing Patrick Roath, a lawyer challenging Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.).

Bynum package. Frontline Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) is introducing a 16-bill package aimed at improving lives for young Americans. The proposal focuses on housing, jobs and education. Read more here.

The Airwaves. House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) is running a new ad in Little Rock, saying that he is focused on “real proposals with real solutions, results, not rhetoric.” This has been an interesting district in recent years. Watch the spot here.

– Jake Sherman, Max Cohen and Ally Mutnick

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