Senate sets up showdown votes on shutdown plans
Senate leaders on Tuesday agreed to hold votes this week on dueling proposals to reopen shuttered federal agencies, forcing a political reckoning for senators grappling with the longest shutdown in U.S. history: Side with President Donald Trump or vote to temporarily end the shutdown and keep negotiating. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. set up the two showdown votes for Thursday, a day before some 800,000 federal workers are due to miss a second paycheck. One vote will be on his own measure, which reflects Trump’s offer to trade border wall funding for temporary protections for some immigrants. It was quickly rejected by Democrats. The second vote is set for a bill approved by the Democratic-controlled House reopening government through Feb. 8, with no wall money, to give bargainers time to talk. Both measures are expected fall short of the 60 votes need to pass, leaving little hope they represent the clear path out of the mess. But the plan represents the first test of Senate Republicans’ resolve behind Trump’s insistence that agencies remain closed until Congress approves $5.7 billion to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. For Democrats, the votes will show whether there are any cracks in the so-far unified rejection of Trump’s demand. Democrats on Tuesday ridiculed McConnell’s bill, which included temporarily extended protections for “Dreamer” immigrants, but also harsh new curbs on Central Americans seeking safe haven in the U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the GOP plan’s immigration proposals were “even more radical” than their past positions. “The president’s proposal is just wrapping paper on the same partisan package and hostage taking tactics,” offering to temporarily restore programs Trump himself tried to end in exchange for wall funding, Schumer said. McConnell accused Democrats of preferring “political combat with the president” to resolving the 32-day partial federal shutdown. He said Democrats were prepared to abandon federal workers, migrants and all Americans “just to extend this run of political theater so they can look like champions of the so-called resistance” against Trump. The confrontational tone underscored that there remained no clear end in sight to the closure. Amid cascading tales of civil servants facing increasingly dire financial tribulations from the longest federal shutdown in history, the Senate chaplain nudged his flock. “As hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for another painful payday, remind our lawmakers they can ease the pain,” Chaplain Barry Black intoned as the Senate convened. The upcoming vote on the Democratic plan marked a departure for McConnell, who had vowed to allow no votes on shutdown measures unless Trump would sign them. The White House views its latest offer as a test of whether Democratic leaders can hold their members together in opposition, said a person familiar with White House thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly. The administration also wants to show they are willing to negotiate, hoping it will push more blame onto Democrats, who are opposing negotiations until the government reopens. Public polls show Trump is taking the brunt of the blame from voters so far. “How long are they going to continue to be obstructionists and not solve the problem and not reopen the government?” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of Democrats. One freshman, Democrat Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, a state that’s home to many federal workers, was circulating a draft letter Tuesday urging Nancy Pelosi to propose a deal that would reopen the government and then consider border security legislation — including holding votes on Trump’s demand for wall money — by the end of February. A similar effort was under way last week by a bipartisan group of senators. As the stalemate grinded on, Alaska Airlines said the closure would cause at least a three-week delay in its plan to start new passenger flights from Everett, Washington. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said the shutdown could slow home sales by 1 percent in coming months. And a restaurant in Red Bank, New Jersey, owned by musician Jon Bon Jovi joined the list of establishments serving free meals to furloughed federal workers. McConnell’s bill largely reflects the proposal Trump described to the nation in a brief address Saturday. It would reopen federal agencies, revamp immigration laws and provide $5.7 billion to start building his prized border wall with Mexico — a project Democrats consider an ineffective, wasteful monument to a ridiculous Trump campaign promise. Republicans posted the 1,301-page measure online late Monday. Its details provoked Democrats, particularly immigration provisions Trump hadn’t mentioned during his speech. The measure would provide a three-year extension of protections against deportation for 700,000 people covered by the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Democrats want far more to be protected — Trump last year proposed extending the safeguards to 1.8 million people, including many who’d not yet applied — and want the program’s coverage for so-called “Dreamers” to be permanent. Trump has tried terminating the Obama-era DACA program, which shields people brought to the U.S. illegally as children, but has been blocked so far by federal judges. The GOP bill would revive, for three years, protections for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua who fled natural disasters or violence in their countries. Trump has ended that Temporary Protected Status program for those and several other countries. Republicans estimated the proposal would let 325,000 people remain in the U.S. But the GOP proposal contains new curbs, providing those protections only to those who are already in the U.S. legally and who earn at least 125 percent of the federal poverty limit. The bill would also, for the first time, require minors seeking asylum from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to process their applications at facilities the State Department is to establish in several Central American countries. Other new conditions include a limit of 15,000 of these minors who could be granted asylum. Currently, many asylum seekers apply as they’re entering the U.S. and can remain here as judges
Steve Flowers: New federal judges in Alabama – future legacy
Regardless of what happens in Donald Trump’s administration over the next two years, he will have a proven record of success as President especially if you are a conservative American. One of, if not the most important accomplishment of any president is the opportunity to appoint a United States Supreme Court Justice. Folks, Trump has appointed and gotten confirmed two members of the Supreme Court in two years. This is a remarkable achievement. Justices Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh will have an immense impact on American laws and values for more than likely over two decades, long after Donald Trump is dead and gone. Both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are young, in their early 50s and will be a part of many landmark rulings that will profoundly affect American public policy. Trump’s selection of these two extremely well qualified jurists were wise ones, both are exceptionally groomed and scripted to be outstanding Justices. They are considered mainstream, moderate conservatives with the perfect educational and judicial background and experience. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was more controversial because his choice is a pivotal swing vote on the Court that tilts the Court to a conservative majority. Gorsuch was an even swap, a conservative for a conservative. He replaced conservative Justice Anton Scalia. Kavanaugh’s appointment was critical. The liberal Democrats had to go to the wall and declare all out war by whatever means to derail and delay the Kavanaugh confirmation. The Court swung to becoming a conservative tribunal with Kavanaugh. The Court had four liberals and four conservatives. Kavanaugh replaced the swing vote on the Court, Anthony Kennedy. Therefore, the Court is now five conservatives to four liberals. Make no doubt about it, the confirmation of a Supreme Court Judge is very political. The liberals had to resort to extreme measures to preserve the possibility that the Republicans could lose their control of the U.S. Senate which, gives consent to a President’s SCOTUS appointments. In today’s extremely partisan politics, lines are drawn and there are no prisoners kept, both sides go for the jugular vein. Therefore, the only way for Trump to be successful in his garnering the placement of two conservative justices is because he has a Republican majority Senate with some very adroit veteran GOP Senate leaders like Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and Richard Shelby paving the way. Speaking of our Senior Senator, Richard Shelby, he has masterminded and orchestrated a legendary coup of his own when it comes to our U.S. Federal Judges in Alabama. In conjunction with the Trump administration, Shelby has placed six new Federal Judges in Alabama, all young and conservative. This Shelby/Trump triumph has secured a two to three decade dominance of conservative federal judges in the Heart of Dixie. During the Obama years at least six federal judgeships became vacant in Alabama. President Barack Obama appointed replacements but Senator Shelby and our former Senator Jeff Sessions sat on them and refused to allow them to be confirmed. These seats have remained vacant due to partisan gamesmanship. Shelby and Sessions were hoping that a day would come when there would be a Republican President and they could place these lifetime appointments into conservative hands. That day miraculously arrived last January. Senator Shelby and his former Chief of Staff and now BCA President, Katie Britt, spent the entire year of 2018 interviewing, vetting and selecting these judges to assure that they were young, conservative, qualified, and confirmable. They have indeed accomplished this lifetime feat for Alabama. Liles Burke and Anne Marie Axon are the two new judges for the Northern District. Emily Marks and Andrew Brasher will join conservative Chief Judge William Keith Watkins in the Middle District. The Southern District will have two new Trump-Shelby appointees in Terry Moorer and Jeffrey Beaverstock. Senator Richard Shelby has further enhanced his legacy for decades to come and has placed an indelible stamp on the federal judiciary in Alabama with these judicial appointees. See you next week. ••• Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in more than 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
