The rivalry between Senate and House Republicans could be on the verge of taking another turn as the upper chamber is preparing to jam their colleagues once again, this time with the single-party package funding key parts of the Department of Homeland Security that has been at the center of the recent war between the two sides of the Capitol.
Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday signaled they are confident that the party’s pending reconciliation package will remain “skinny” and only contain funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Protection for three years, despite the calls from some across the Capitol complex.
That idea has landed with a thud among some House conservatives who view the package, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune previewed as “anorexic,” as wholly inadequate. This is leading to yet another clash between the two sides that leaders have been wanting to sidestep but may not be able to.
“Do you think we’d stick to everybody agreeing to have a ‘skinny’ reconciliation bill?” Sen. Steve Daines quipped, nodding to the appetite of some in both chambers to broaden out the proposal. But, he argued, “there’s general consensus” it should be kept skinny.
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Senate Republicans on Tuesday aired concerns at their weekly policy luncheon about sticking to the narrow bill. Some members said it would be one of the last chances to cement priorities into law ahead of the midterms and that they didn’t believe a plan to put other items in a third reconciliation bill was feasible.
Party leaders have stuck to the limited proposal by citing the need to pass it swiftly and to limit the types of votes Democrats can force them to take as part of a vote-a-rama — a marathon vote series that is part of the budget-resolution process. Some of those votes are politically dicey just months before the midterms for those facing tough reelection contests.
But House Republicans want to see the package include more priorities.
“It will be very hard to have a true skinny bill,” one senior House GOP member told NOTUS. “You need to have goodies in a bill like this.”
Rep. August Pfluger, who has been one of the most vocal proponents for a second reconciliation bill, said he wanted to see this second bill “hit most of the major issues the president has championed.” He pointed to the framework the Republican Study Committee released in January that included tackling policy areas including housing, health care and energy costs in a party-line bill.
Although, some members have conceded the Senate will likely jam them and don’t believe House Speaker Mike Johnson will fight to include items beyond immigration funding in the bill.
“That is what will happen if a number of us do not tell them no, which we should,” one member of the House Freedom Caucus told NOTUS about the potential to be forced to accept the Senate package. “There is a regression to the ‘backroom decisions, suck it up and vote with the team’ mentality that needs to stop.”
This member added that they didn’t believe Johnson would stand up to the Senate “unless we demand it.”
Others, though, believe that even if the Senate again ignores input from the House, it won’t work because House Republicans will block other legislation from the Senate .
“They can’t jam us, because we’re about to blow up their shit,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told NOTUS.
Johnson has indicated to members that he doesn’t expect to put the bill that funds most of DHS that the Senate passed in March on the floor until significant progress was made on the reconciliation package, sources told NOTUS.
This could significantly prolong the partial shutdown that’s already lasted 60 days, as reconciliation in the House will be tough to pass, whether it remains skinny or policy priorities are added to it.
“I still don’t believe a second reconciliation will pass,” the senior House GOP member told NOTUS.
The latest war of words comes after months of bad blood between the two conferences. Most recently, the two have thrown down over funding DHS, with the Senate twice passing a bill unanimously to fund all of the department sans ICE and CBP after airport lines exploded in size.
The House initially rebelled against the bill, leading Johnson to trash the Senate proposal — only to do a U-turn and back it days later alongside the reconciliation effort.
Thune is scheduled to huddle with Johnson on Wednesday amid the latest back-and-forth, telling reporters that that two have spoken “regularly” and that the White House has been part of those discussions as well. He also hopes to pass the budget resolution as early as next week.
When asked whether he was worried about House conservatives throwing a fit over the blueprint, Thune insisted that it was the only practical path.
“They might. But I think it’s the only way. I think they also understand — well, some of them do — how hard it is,” he said, pointing to various Senate rules, including the “Byrd Bath” — the process that determines what is allowed to be included in a budget reconciliation bill.
“Frankly, if the White House is on board with that strategy, I assume that hopefully the House will find a way to be supportive,” he added.
Helping Thune out is that a number of conservatives, including some who’ve been a thorn in the side of leadership, also believe the skinny bill is the only way to get the pending measure passed.
“You’ve got to pass it fast,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, saying that he’d prefer for the entirety of DHS to be funded through 2029. “But there’d be complications with that, so that’d be my preference. But if we can’t, we have to do it skinny.”
“We have to pass this,” he added. “We have to pass it fast.”
That doesn’t mean that there’s uniformity among Senate Republicans.
Sen. John Kennedy, a foremost proponent of using the measure to advance items to deal with affordability or to codify all or some of the SAVE America Act, told reporters that he expects there to be “a whole lot of amendments” as part of the process and that members are still pushing for their priorities despite what leadership has said.
“This is it. This is our shot,” Kennedy said. “That’s why you sense some frustration among a lot of the senators, some of which has been voiced and a lot of which hasn’t.”
Either way, members have grown tired of the ongoing feud with the House, especially if it creates trouble for this current package they are hoping to process in the coming weeks.
“They can either fight with the Democrats or they can fight among themselves,” Sen. Mike Rounds said.
This story was updated to reflect the timing of the meeting between Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson.
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