Lawmakers work to avoid long-term government shutdown

PHOENIX — Sunday marked the second official day of the federal government shutdown and lawmakers said they were still working to come to a conclusion on a funding bill.

The government shut down at the stroke of midnight on Friday, halting all but the most essential operations and marring the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a striking display of Washington dysfunction.

A government-wide funding bill had passed the House on Thursday, but Senate Democrats vowed to filibuster the legislation.

The issue at hand? Immigration.

Democrats have been seeking a deal to protect so-called Dreamers. About 700,000 of them have been shielded against deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which Trump halted last year. He’s given lawmakers until early March to pass legislation restoring the protections, but he’s demanded added money for his proposed border wall with Mexico as a price.

Democrats refused to provide the votes needed to reopen the government until they strike a deal with Trump protecting those young immigrants from deportation, providing disaster relief and boosting spending for opioid treatment and other domestic programs.

Republicans blamed the breakdown on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Democrats increasingly focused their messaging on criticizing Trump, whose popularity is dismal. Democrats were using his zigzagging stance in immigration talks — first encouraging deals, then rejecting them — to underscore his first, chaotic year in office.

Related: Sen. McCain, others respond to US government shutdown

But as both Republican and Democratic lawmakers worked to come to a compromise — Democrat Rep. Luis Gutierrez said he would fund a U.S. Mexico border wall if it meant protecting DREAMers — lawmakers said the president was failing at doing his job.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said bipartisan conversations are taking place and lawmakers from both sides are “in good faith trying to find common ground and put this behind us.”

“But at the end of the day, the president has to step up and lead in this situation,” Durbin said.

The questions today:

– Will @realDonaldTrump take the reins of his presidency back?
– Will the Senate strike a pact to go it alone?

Stay tuned.

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) January 21, 2018

Republicans seemed content to hope additional Democrats will break as pressure builds and the impact of the shutdown becomes clearer. GOP lawmakers argued that Democrats were blocking extra Pentagon money by keeping government closed and thwarting a long-term budget deal.

But pressure on Republicans could mount when the new business week begins and the impact becomes more apparent to the public.

The Statue of Liberty and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell were closed, but visitors had access to other sites such as Yellowstone. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tweeted a photo of him talking to students at the World War II Memorial in Washington, blocks from the White House.

Social Security and most other safety-net programs were unaffected by the lapse in federal spending authority. Critical government functions continued, with uniformed service members, health inspectors and law enforcement officers set to work without pay.

Budget director Mick Mulvaney said that if the shutdown continues into Monday, there were be three categories of federal employees affected: those who will continue to come to work, another group that will come to work for about four hours “to help shut things down” and those who will not come to work at all.

“But most Americans won’t see a difference,” Mulvaney said.

Trump had been an unreliable negotiator in the weeks leading up to the showdown. Earlier this week he tweeted opposition to the four-week plan, forcing the White House to later affirm his support. He expressed openness to extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only to reject a bipartisan proposal. His disparaging remarks about African and Haitian immigrants last week helped derail further negotiations.

The shutdown has been the first since 2013, when tea party Republicans — in a strategy not unlike the one Schumer is employing now — sought to use a must-pass funding bill to try to force then-President Barack Obama to delay implementation of his marquee health care law. At the time, Trump told Fox & Friends that the ultimate blame for a shutdown lies at the top. “I really think the pressure is on the president,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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