Congresswoman Nancy Mace Explains Where The House Is At On The DHS Shutdown

Where we are on TSA funding...The Senate unanimously decided to give in to Democrat demands to not fund ICE or CBP.

They passed a bill by voice vote (which is why you saw them leaving town last night before the actual vote early this morning). The Senate sent it to the House to fund all of DHS except ICE and the Border Patrol (CBP), the agencies responsible for enforcing our immigration laws and removing criminal illegal aliens from the country.

This surrender by Senate Republicans was passed in the middle of the night and then the entire Senate decided to go home for 2.5 weeks.

This leaves the House with 3 undesirable options:

(1) Pass the bill as is, cutting funding for U.S. immigration enforcement

(2) Amend the bill to include funding for ICE and CBP and send it back to the Senate. Unfortunately given the Senate's decision to take a 2.5-week vacation, the DHS shutdown would continue

(3) Reject the bill, continuing the shutdown of DHS Given the Rules of the House, passing this bill as-is also has procedural barriers to overcome

If there is bipartisan consensus behind a bill, typically the easiest way to pass the bill is under suspension of the rules. Under suspension of the rules, debate is limited to 40 minutes and it requires a 2/3 majority to pass.

Unfortunately, clause 1(a) of Rule XV of the House provides "the Speaker may not entertain a motion that the House suspend the rules except on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays". Meaning we could not consider the bill under suspension of the rules until Monday.

The other way in which to pass bills in the House is by passing a rule providing for consideration of the bill and then moving on to consider the bill under that rule. But, clause 6(a) of Rule XIII provides "a report by the Committee on Rules on a rule, joint rule, or the order of business may not be called up for consideration on the same day it is presented to the House". This is what's known as the "same day" rule.

Under clause 6(a) of Rule XIII, there are limited exceptions in which a House may consider a rule the same day it is reported to the House by the Rules Committee. This includes when 2/3 of the House vote to do so. This is one way to pass the DHS appropriations bill (without ICE and CBP funding) today.

There are also various ways in which the House can waive its own rules, including through unanimous consent, through a resolution, or other mechanism. The House can also adjourn midday and start a new legislative day after the rule is reported, bypassing the same-day rule because it is technically a new legislative day.

There are still a lot of challenges ahead, but we are fully committed to getting ALL of DHS reopened for the American people.