Congress is in the midst of a crisis — again.
The federal government has been partially shut down since Friday night. As of right now — Monday morning — the Senate-passed, White House-negotiated government funding package doesn’t have an easy path through the House to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The Senate on Friday night passed both the five-bill funding package and a separate two-week Homeland Security stopgap funding bill. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer cut a deal with the White House to pass the short-term DHS stopgap so Congress can work on an ICE-reform package through Feb. 13.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wasn’t a party to that deal. That means Speaker Mike Johnson may be forced to try to pass the funding package with just GOP votes, something that hasn’t gone very well this Congress.
The House Rules Committee will meet at 4 p.m. today to begin the process. Then Johnson and House GOP leaders have to pass the rule on the floor amid complaints from rank-and-file Republicans like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), who is threatening to shut down everything because the Senate won’t pass a new voter ID law.
Plus, the hardline House Freedom Caucus is firmly opposed to renegotiating Homeland Security funding. That’s potentially 30-plus votes that Johnson and Trump have to win over.
If and when the rule passes, Johnson then has to find 218 votes to pass the funding package, which we expect on the floor as late as Tuesday.
Remember: There will be just one vote — concurring with the Senate amendment. In other words, lawmakers won’t be able to vote for the five-bill funding measure and against DHS.
House GOP leadership had initially considered putting the bills on the floor under suspension of the rules, which requires 290 votes. But Johnson abandoned that tack after Jeffries warned him that Democrats are going to vote no. That puts the political blame squarely on Republicans if the bill fails.
The Democratic vote count is very fluid. There may be significant Democratic support here for the funding measure, but only if Republicans can pass the rule and get the package to the floor.
During a Sunday evening caucus call, most House Democrats were against the bill. Many will never vote for any DHS bill. Yet notably, Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Jim Clyburn (S.C.), the former No. 2 and No. 3 in Democratic leadership, said Democrats should vote for the bill. Other Democrats said they would be yes too.
Trump effect. This is a major test for Trump. He’s going to have to strong arm House Republicans to vote for the rule and the overall package. At the same, Democrats have to see that Trump is serious about reining in ICE. There’s little, if any, trust for Trump among Democrats and there never will be. And the president has been largely disengaged from the legislative process since the battles over his tax cut package last year.
The GOP leadership doesn’t have many goodies to offer Republicans to vote for this bill. They can try to get Senate Majority Leader John Thune to publicly commit again to a SAVE Act vote, although Luna and her allies want to attach it to the must-pass spending package.
There’s another complication here for Johnson. Democrat Christian Menefee won a special election Saturday in Houston and will be arriving in Washington today. Johnson will swear Menefee into Congress today, provided the speaker has the documents from the Texas Secretary of State. This will shrink Johnson’s vote cushion to just one vote.
The deal that wasn’t. The fact that Congress is still wrestling with FY2026 funding heading into February is legislative malpractice. And having to wonder whether House Democrats will uphold an agreement that Schumer cut is pretty stunning.
Whose fault it is that Schumer and Jeffries are on different pages here is being hotly debated inside the White House and congressional leadership circles. It’s not the first time this Congress that they’ve had conflicting political agendas.
The White House cut the deal for the two-week CR with Schumer and Senate Democrats. Schumer said he was in touch with Jeffries and both agreed that a two-week CR was the way to go. Exactly half of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted for the funding deal on Friday.
The Trump administration was in contact with Jeffries’ team. Jeffries’ team told us that if the White House wanted to get the bill through the House, cutting a deal with Schumer wasn’t enough.
Republicans say Schumer shouldn’t have made a deal that Jeffries hadn’t signed off on. Johnson and Trump may need to deal directly with Jeffries as this week gets going.
A fight for naught? This entire strategy is predicated on Congress and the White House somehow finding DHS reforms that satisfy both sides. You should be extremely skeptical that this is possible.
First of all, as soon as any DHS deal is reached and turned into legislative text, it’ll take each chamber anywhere from several days to a week to pass. That effectively means that Congress and the White House need a deal immediately in order to make the deadline they set.
But the Trump administration and Congress are nowhere near any deal.
In fact, Johnson seems to be closing the door on one of Schumer’s top priorities. Johnson told Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” that he doesn’t want to forbid ICE agents from wearing masks or require them to wear IDs — two must-have requests from Schumer.
“Those two things are conditions that would create further danger,” Johnson said.
Plus, the divide between House and Senate Democrats on the two-week DHS CR will make it much harder for Democrats to have their demands met during the next, extremely shortened, phase of this struggle.
