House clears final funding bills after GOP peels off DHS
Plus: House GOP leaders block Venezuelan war powers resolution, House repeals Senate Arctic Frost provision and voters view Trump 2.0’s first year a disappointment.
First Things First
The House achieved a meaningful feat this afternoon, albeit nearly four months late: It passed the final four of the 12 bills to fully fund the government through the end of September.
The bills cleared the chamber with relatively little drama from Democrats, who emerged from the appropriations process largely unscathed after negotiators successfully peeled off the controversial Department of Homeland Security bill to allow a more palatable minibus funding Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development to receive consideration on its own.
This significant Republican concession gave Democratic leaders room to vote against DHS as a signal of opposition to ICE—without formally whipping the bill and risking an egg-on-face moment from the seven members who backed it anyway. It also spared progressives and anti-ICE Democrats from having to choose between supporting major domestic investments and swallowing a Homeland Security package they argue lacked basic guardrails to rein in ICE as the Trump administration ramps up mass deportations and anti-immigration rhetoric.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) suggested the DHS decoupling was the price Republicans had to pay for the votes on the other bill to avoid another government shutdown or a continuing resolution that would have kept the current funding levels in place.
“They needed us, I guess, which is why they separated them,” she said. “And I think it was a good decision.”
Rep. Emily Randall (D-Wash.) agreed that House GOP leadership’s decision came down to the math.
“Everybody’s got to count the votes,” she said. “And I believe if we have power and leverage to hold ICE accountable, we’ve got to use all of it.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told me he thinks all appropriations bills should be voted on separately because combining them often compromises members who may disagree with one but support another.
“But on top of that, we see ICE terrorizing our communities,” he said. “And it is important for Democrats to take a stand and say, ‘We’re not going to vote to fund an organization that’s being used to terrorize our people.”
