The Hitchhiker’s Guide to what to expect on DHS funding when the Senate meets Monday
The DHS funding drama heads back to the Senate on Monday morning after the House approved a two-month stopgap spending plan for all of DHS late Friday night.The Senate meets...
By Fox News · Fox News
The DHS funding drama heads back to the Senate on Monday morning after the House approved a two-month stopgap spending plan for all of DHS late Friday night. The Senate meets on Monday at 10:30 am et in what was supposed to be a brief "pro forma" session where the body simply gavels in and gavels out with a skeleton crew on hand. But that might not be what happens Monday. As soon as the Senate gets through the prayer and pledge, it’s likely a Republican senator seeks recognition from the chair. If that happens, we anticipate the GOP senator to ask for unanimous consent (meaning all 100 senators would agree) to take up the DHS bill passed by the House on Friday, that it be "read a third time" and passed. REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO WHAT'S NEXT TO END THE DHS SHUTDOWN The chair will then ask if there is an objection. If any senator – be they a Democrat or Republican – objects, the House bill is dead. That means that the House and Senate continue to be out of alignment on the DHS funding question. For instance, the House didn’t even consider the bill cleared by all 100 senators and passed by the Senate at 2:19 am Friday. The House simply wrote their own two-month interim bill, passed it Friday night and skipped town. If there is no objection, the House and Senate are aligned and will have passed the same bill. That means they are on the same page. Approval of the House bill by the Senate would end the DHS shutdown. But if there’s an objection, everything remains frozen. This is both the parliamentary magic – and dark underbelly of "unanimous consent" in the Senate. You could have 99 senators in favor of something. But all it takes is a solitary objection to foil a bill under "unanimous consent" or "UC" as it’s often called in the Senate. In fact, it’s possible that Democrats could then offer their own DHS funding bill and ask the Senate to approve that by unanimous consent. It’s likely that whatever Republican senator is on duty tomorrow would objec…