Republicans have had enough. After months of watching the Department of Homeland Security limp along on fumes because Senate Democrats refused to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection, the GOP is doing what any majority party does when the minority obstructs government functions — they're going around them.
The standoff traces back to January, when Renee Good attempted to run over an ICE agent with her car, and he was forced to shoot her in self-defense, and when Alex Pretti assaulted Border Patrol agents with a loaded gun and was shot himself. Democrats took the side of these anti-ICE agitators, using them as a pretext to refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless insane reforms to ICE were implemented. The result was a partial DHS shutdown.
Republicans responded by assembling a reconciliation package of roughly $75 billion to fund ICE and CBP for three years. "This is advance appropriating,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. “So these are dollars that we would spend in the out years anyway." In other words, the money was always going to be spent — Democrats just forced Republicans to find a different way to get it spent.
Cue the Democratic outrage machine.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) issued what he apparently believes is some dire warning. "We've warned them about that," he said. "They should be on notice. That is opening the door big-time to doing that."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also piled on, warning, “Once you have established a precedent, the other side is going to take a careful look and see if it benefits them."
Stop the presses. Democrats are threatening to use procedural tools to get what they want! Someone alert the historians!
Give me a break! The reconciliation process is not some secret Republican weapon they just whipped up. Both parties have used it freely. Heck, they used reconciliation to pass Obamacare for crying out loud. Can we stop pretending that this is so unprecedented? The notion that Republicans using reconciliation now is somehow a Pandora's box moment requires a level of amnesia that would be impressive if it weren't so transparently stupid. They just want to be able to blame Republicans when they do it themselves… even though they’ve done it before.
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Chuck Schumer told NOTUS he isn't ruling out a future reconciliation bill targeting health care, education, and climate agencies if Democrats retake the majority. "We believe very strongly that we have to get some things done when we win the majority," he said, adding that he wouldn't speculate on strategy just yet.
Even Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, seemed uncomfortable with his own party's posturing. "I do think it's a dangerous game we're involved in," he admitted. "It's very clear both parties are carving out exceptions for their favorite stuff, but this is not the way to do normal funding."
Again, they used reconciliation to pass Obamacare. Spare me the faux outrage over what Republicans are doing.
Even if you want to forget how Obamacare was passed, the fact is that reconciliation would not be necessary if Democrats weren’t blocking routine DHS funding over a political dispute, partially shutting down a critical department. Republicans had to find a workaround. That's not a Republican power grab — that's a direct consequence of Democratic obstruction. The dysfunction in the Senate is the property of the Democratic Party. If Democrats don't like where things are headed, they know exactly where to look for the source of the problem.
