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A bipartisan effort in Congress to restrain immigration enforcement tactics is flailing. And without a deal, the Department of Homeland Security will run out of funding after tomorrow. This would not be the first time lawmakers pledged to find consensus only for negotiations to fall apart. NPR congressional reporter Sam Gringlas explains.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: A month ago, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio was confident a bipartisan group of lawmakers was nearing a deal to renew lapsed health insurance subsidies.
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BERNIE MORENO: We're in the red zone, but that does not mean a touchdown. And it could mean a 95-yard fumble.
GRINGLAS: In the end, there was no touchdown. Moreno says the talks fizzled, blaming Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for shutting them down in order to keep pummeling Republicans over premium costs.
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MORENO: Shouldn't we be here trying to figure out how to solve problems, rather than trying to figure out how to score political points for the purposes of the next election?
GRINGLAS: Democratic negotiators say Republicans blew up the effort by inserting anti-abortion language in a provision on health savings accounts. Some Democrats, like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, say the effort was doomed to fail not because of lack of compromise, but because Democrats gave up their leverage when a few voted to end the shutdown last fall.
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CHRISTOPHER MURPHY: I was pretty confident the minute that we gave up that we weren't going to get it.
GRINGLAS: Congress' ability to act is again being tested, this time by two deadly shootings of U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis. As with the subsidies, public demand pushed a number of Democrats and Republicans to pledge to do something - in this case, reining in enforcement tactics. And top lawmakers were optimistic they could find common ground, from House Speaker Mike Johnson to leading Senate Democrats like Patty Murray.
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PATTY MURRAY: I'll be doing everything I possibly can to ensure that we meet this moment.
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MIKE JOHNSON: And so I think we can get to an agreement. I certainly hope that's true.
GRINGLAS: But within days, that rosiness dissipated ahead of a Friday deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
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JOHN THUNE: Their immediate rejection of the Democrats' common-sense proposals was totally predictable - that such a short timeline would be challenging, if not impossible.
GRINGLAS: Senate Majority Leader John Thune there says Democrats dawdled and then produced a laundry list of nonstarters. Senate Minority Leader Schumer called Republicans' offer insufficient. I asked Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who's been a part of the negotiations on subsidies and immigration, why bipartisan collaborations keep crumbling. She said Congress does collaborate to get stuff done, like the bipartisan spending laws.
SUSAN COLLINS: I don't know how you can possibly describe that as crumbling. That's Congress reasserting its power of the purse.
GRINGLAS: Former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, spent hours in rooms with senators like Collins trying to resolve a standoff over the debt ceiling. She says bipartisan negotiations have always been a high-wire act, particularly amid a national crisis.
HEIDI HEITKAMP: You know, when the shock wears off, then all of a sudden, everybody goes back to their corners.
GRINGLAS: A gang of eight lawmakers tried but failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2013. A bipartisan Senate duo made progress on policing reform after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 but came up empty-handed. Heitkamp says many lawmakers today see even less incentive to compromise as politics becomes more tribal.
HEITKAMP: The base on both sides, their willingness to reward compromise is greatly diminished (ph).
GRINGLAS: When Congress promises to act and does not, Heitkamp says public trust is eroded. Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama says she's thinking a lot about that as she helps lead the current negotiations.
KATIE BRITT: Anybody can identify a problem. We have to be people that are looking for solutions. I think we owe it to the people we serve to actually find that pathway forward.
GRINGLAS: Britt has dismissed Democrats' initial demands as a Christmas list. But last fall, she did strike a deal with those handful of Democrats that voted to end that 43-day shutdown, including Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. Kaine still believes bipartisan action is possible, but the reality is that on the most fraught issues, it is really hard.
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TIMOTHY KAINE: On health care, on immigration, the parties are in fundamentally very, very different places.
GRINGLAS: Kaine says he goes into negotiations like these with high hopes, low expectations. Sam Gringlas, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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