The ball's in the House's court. While you were sleeping, the Senate did it! It voted to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), minus Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Now, it's up to the House to reopen most of the DHS. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has his work cut out for him.
The tricky dynamic for the Speaker: Johnson has two ways he can go about this.
1) He can try to pass this bill through regular order, which only needs a simple majority of support. That means passing a rule to move the proposal forward. But House conservatives could tank it because they want President Trump's voting reform priorities to be part of it.
2) Johnson can try to fast-track the bill. However, he would then need two-thirds support in the House, not just a simple majority. That means he would need a substantial number of House Democrats to agree.
💡Oh, and did you know that per House rules, the fast-track process under suspension of the rules isn't available on Fridays. That literally sounds like an SNL joke about congressional procedure.
This is a hopeful sign: The Hill's Mike Lillis reports that House Democrats appear willing to back the Senate's DHS funding deal(!) House Democrats huddled in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center this morning.
Moderate Democrats came out of that meeting pretty cheerful, according to reporters. However, Republicans were not.
What happens now?: Now, we keep our eyes on the House floor for white smoke.
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