After I watched McConnell on C-Span make his offer on the Senate Floor, I really felt we had won the battle, or at least had gotten some concessions from the Senate Republicans without giving anything up ourselves. Then I watched the media coverage afterwards. Trump of course was claiming a win, spouting off that “the Democrats had come to their senses” and ended the “Schumer Shutdown”. But that was to be expected from Trump since in his mind he never loses. But our DACA friends were all telling reporters that Schumer and the Democrats “caved” and that we had abandoned them. Some even went on to say that all hope of protecting the Dreamers was lost. And the media was running with this saying Democrats shut down the government and got nothing.
First, I started to think what was wrong with these people? Didn’t they watch the same speech from McConnell that I watched? Are they living in an alternative universe and are watching a different version of C-Span then the one I watched? Then I started to wonder if it was me. Did I miss something? Did I misinterpret what McConnell and Schumer had agreed upon to open the government?
Then I turned to my friends here at DailyKos and I was relieved to find out that others in our reality-based community saw the same McConnell speech that I did and arrived at the same conclusion. There were a slew of diaries from CwV, Brainwrap, Homer and others, all making very cogent arguments that this was a WIN for Democrats, although, admittedly, one could argue over how much of a win it is.
Let’s look at the facts regarding the deal to end the shutdown:
1. Those of us in the reality-based community knew from the onset of the shutdown that we were never going to get the Republicans to completely cave and give us DACA protections, Disaster Relief and other things on our wish list without any strings, in order to get our Senate votes to reopen the government. That was never in the cards and those of us who were honest with ourselves knew it.
2. So what did we gain? List below:
— First, CHIP would have never been put on the table by Republicans if they did not need Dem. votes in the Senate to keep the government open. We just freed 8.9 million sick kids from the Republican hostage takers. Why Democrats aren’t shouting on the rooftops that they just made sure that 8.9 million kids get health insurance for the next 6 years is beyond me. This is a huge win and the Dems. are the Party that made it happen.
— Second, we got McConnell to PUBLICLY promise to put a Bipartisan DACA bill (and Disaster Relief bill) on the Senate Floor before February 8, if a Bipartisan agreement on a bill can be reached. Furthermore, he promised that if an agreement is not reached by February 8, and a bill to keep the government funded (open) beyond February 8 passes, he will immediately begin an open Senate debate and amendment process on a DACA bill. Granted McConnell has reneged on promises he has made in the past. But those were behind the scenes promises, not ones made publicly on the Senate Floor for all to hear. This one will be very hard for McConnell to wiggle out of.
— Third, we got ten (10) Republican Senators to agree with us on a path forward for DACA. So if we can come to an agreement on a DACA bill with these 10 Senate Republicans we will have over the 60 cloture votes needed to end debate and allow the bill to pass the Senate.
— Fourth, we got McConnell and other Senate Republicans to sideline Trump. He was not involved in any meaningful way with the deal to reopen the government. Furthermore, there was no caveat in McConnell’s promise that Trump would have to approve a DACA bill before it came to a Senate vote. This all points to at least some Senate Republicans now seeing Congress as an independent legislative body whose job it is to pass bills and put them on the President’s desk for signing or vetoing. The idea of only passing bills that the President says he will sign if passed, is not our constitutional legislative democracy, its a dictatorship with a rubber stamp legislative body and its good to see some Republicans abandon it, especially since Trump is the President.
3. So what did we lose? NOTHING! We did not give up on DACA. We did not make any promises about what we would allow in a DACA bill. We did not agree to increases to Defense spending without increases in Domestic spending. We just gave them some votes to reopen the government for a couple of weeks.
As I said at the top, we won this battle, but the war for DACA protection is far from over. So let’s look at some of the potential obstacles ahead and how they can be overcome:
1. Yes, McConnell could break or somehow weasel out of his promise to allow a Senate debate/amendments on DACA after February 8. But if we agree to another short term CR on February 8 (a few days or a couple more weeks), we can still hold our votes to keep the government open beyond the new CR deadline if McConnell screws us.
2. If a DACA bill comes to the Senate Floor in some Bipartisan form, we still need 60 cloture votes to get it to pass the Senate. According to Senator Schumer we already have six (6) Republican votes for the Bipartisan Durbin-Graham DACA bill leaving us only 4 votes short. So we will need to do a little arm-twisting and probably some compromising to get the remaining 4 Senators from the gang of 10 on board.
3. If a Bipartisan bill passes the Senate, it still needs to pass the House. That can be done in one of two ways.
One way is to pressure Speaker Ryan to put it on the floor for a vote. Yes that’s a tall order, but momentum for the bill would be building at that point having passed the Senate with at least 60 votes. That may push Ryan to put it on the floor, but it probably depends on what the White House wants. If the WH doesn’t want the Senate DACA bill, Ryan will likely not bring it to the floor.
The other way is through a Discharge Petition, where at least 218 Representatives sign a petition to bring the bill to the floor if the Speaker refuses to do so. That means getting somewhere around 24 Republicans in the House to sign on. Normally it is hard to get folks to sign a petition to override their Speaker, and that still might be the case here. But again, momentum will be building at that point, and I have to believe that there are at least 24 Republicans in purple Districts who may be more worried about November 2018 than they are about offending their Speaker.
4. The last hurdle if we get it passed in the House, is of course Trump. Will he sign or veto? Who the hell knows. If Trump is anything he is unpredictable and there is little we can do to sway him except turning up the public pressure to maximum, and try to be the last folks in the room before he decides.
Anyway, whether you think we won or lost the shutdown battle, I think we can all agree that we need to press on with the war to protect the Dreamers!