With choice words and blunt instruments, people chipped away at obstacles in Washington this week — and it wasn’t just the “snowcrete” left by a powerful winter storm. Senators headed out of town Friday after striking a deal to fund the federal government, but it wasn’t enough to stave off a partial government shutdown over the weekend. While the House was out this week, Senate leadership struggled to wrangle the last slate of House-approved spending bills through the chamber before the Friday night deadline — a politically fraught task made more challenging by the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal immigration officers in Minnesota last weekend. Democrats in response to the shooting backed out of a bipartisan funding package that included a measure to fund the Homeland Security Department, leaving Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and the White House with few options but to negotiate with Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats. Senators announced late Thursday that they reached a deal to punt negotiations on the full-year DHS funding bill and pass the rest, only for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and others to emerge with holds on the bill — and some harsh words for the House. Graham blasted Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., before the vote on passing the spending package, accusing Johnson of “jamming” him by including language in the funding package to repeal a recent provision allowing senators to sue if their phone records were collected as part of former special counsel John L. “Jack” Smith’s probe into President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election result. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this,” Graham said. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, retorted that the Senate “jammed” the House with the provision in November. “We didn’t forget that,” he wrote on social media platform X. The chamber passed the negotiated package Friday after allowing a number of senators votes on various proposals. But the package has to head back to the House for approval, which won’t happen until next week. Until then, parts of the federal government will enter shutdown mode. The House is expected to start preparing the bill for floor consideration as soon as Sunday, with floor votes as early as Monday. However, the House GOP majority will get even slimmer after the special election runoff over the weekend to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, in a reliably blue district — that is, if Johnson swears in the winner in a timely manner. The Justice Department ended the week by releasing more than 3 million additional pages of documents tied to the investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The new trove of materials marks compliance with a law passed last year that ordered the documents to be shared with the public, DOJ said. Meanwhile, the House being in recess this past week didn’t keep members from making waves in Washington. In response to the Minnesota shooting, Democrats and even a few Republicans are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis — a moderate member who’s made headlines for his spicy takes against the White House recently — also called on White House adviser Stephen Miller to step down. House Democratic leadership said they will seek to begin impeachment proceedings if Noem isn’t ousted “immediately,” although Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., didn’t answer a question earlier this week about the timeline. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and a handful of other House Republicans also took to social media to urge the Senate to take up a bill to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, threatening to go as far as to “shut down the floor of the House” if they don’t. Now that the full-year DHS funding bill is back open for negotiations, Luna is pressing for the voter ID proposal to be folded in. Roy also said he would have a list of policy proposals for the funding bill, and others are likely to emerge, too.
