Government Shutdown Continues After Failed Senate Votes 

 

Spectrum One 

January 24, 2019 

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) each voted for their own party’s legislation to end the stalemate.

Both measures failed.

And both senators claimed, ahead of voting, that their party’s bill was the best option.

Portman said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday that President Trump’s latest proposal is an ‘olive branch’ to Democrats.

It would have dedicated $5.7 billion for the border wall and extend the DACA program and Temporary Protective Status (TPS) program for three years.

But Democrats still don’t want anything to do with the wall.

They instead voted on Thursday to reopen the government and fund it through February 8, while continuing to negotiate about border security separately.

“It’s not just delaying when it means that air traffic controllers are paid,” said Brown, when asked if a funding bill through only February 8 would have been kicking the can down the road. “[It’s not just delaying when it means] that people patrolling our borders are paid, and Coast Guard [members] taking care of the Great Lakes and the eastern seaboard and western seaboard are paid, and when the contract workers that provide food at federal facilities, that are making $10 and $12 and $15 an hour preparing the food, that they’re paid.”

In his interview with Fox, Portman said: “The president has put forward a plan that not only has the new barriers along the border that he wants, but also has many of the priorities that the Democrats want in terms of border security and it has the expansion of the DACA and the TPS group that the Democrats have been calling for.”

Spectrum Washington reporter Taylor Popielarz also sat down with Representative Marcia Fudge (D-11) on Thursday to talk about the shutdown for the first time since it started.

Fudge said her fellow Democrats need to be willing to negotiate a bit more with the president, even though she's against the wall.

She said she supports increasing border security, but she believes Trump is not being honest with the American people about the best way to do it -- because a border wall would likely cost tens of billions of dollars.

“I’m not going to say I want to build a wall, because I think it’s a waste of time — a waste of money,” Fudge said. “But I am willing to give the president more money for border security. No question about it. I just think that we have to give some. You know, if we give him a billion dollars and all he wants to do is build a wall, let him, because he can’t build a wall with a billion dollars and he can’t build a wall with $5 billion.”

The big question moving forward is what will it actually take to get Congress and President Trump to agree to reopen the government?

60 votes were needed in the Senate on Thursday.

Trump’s proposal was voted down 50-47.

The Democrats’ proposal was voted down 52-44