"Half of the 12 appropriations bills had already cleared both houses of Congress. The other six spending bills were pending in the Senate; after a freestanding vote on Department of Homeland Security funding scraped through the House, they'd been combined into a single package. If seven or eight Senate Democrats voted for the package (depending on what the typically spending-averse Rand Paul did), the government would stay open."
"That all changed when Alex Pretti was shot to death in Minneapolis in what looked to most people who viewed the viral video like a public execution of a U.S. citizen. For once, Democrats were united in outrage and determination. They seized on the Senate-appropriations vote as the most obvious way to take a stand against the reign of terror President Donald Trump's mass-deportation program has imposed on America's cities."
"For once, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer didn't equivocate either. Even as Republicans and Trump himself seemed to grow concerned about what the images from Minneapolis were doing to public support for the administration and the GOP, there was no "Democratic disarray" on the subject. In short, the procedural house of cards that House and Senate Republicans built to get DHS money through Congress has fully collapsed."
Half of the 12 appropriations bills had cleared both houses while six spending bills remained pending in the Senate; DHS funding had been combined into a single package after a freestanding House vote. If seven or eight Senate Democrats supported the package, the government would stay open. The viral video of Alex Pretti's shooting in Minneapolis galvanized Democratic outrage and shifted votes toward opposing DHS funding. Moderates including Angus King, Tim Kaine, and Amy Klobuchar pledged to withhold support until ICE and related agencies were restrained. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to equivocate. The GOP procedural strategy to pass DHS funding collapsed.
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