Last fall, congressional Republicans said they were so desperate to deal with U.S./Mexico border policies that they took a radical step: GOP officials said that unless Democrats agreed to a series of conservative reforms, Republicans were prepared to let Russia take part of eastern Europe by force.
Democrats, left with little choice, agreed to pay the GOP’s ransom and endorsed a conservative, bipartisan compromise. As regular readers know, it was at that point when Republicans, acting at Donald Trump’s behest, killed the compromise plan they’d demanded.
Today, Democratic leaders gave senators a second opportunity. As NBC News reported, it did not go well for the bill’s proponents.
Senate Democrats failed to advance a bipartisan border security bill Thursday, with nearly every Republican voting to filibuster it as Donald Trump wields border chaos as a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign against President Joe Biden. The vote was 43-50, falling short of the 60 needed to proceed.
Headed into this week, one of the lingering questions was how many votes the bipartisan package would gain since the initial vote in early February. That question now has an answer: The legislation actually managed to lose support.
In February, the final tally was 49 to 50. This afternoon, with several members missing the vote, it was 43 to 50.
In fact, a tripartisan trio co-authored the bill months ago — Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — and two of three, Lankford and Sinema, ended up voting against advancing their own legislation today.
It’s not that they’ve lost confidence in their own bill, but rather, Lankford and Sinema said they saw this second effort as election-year symbolism, rather than a serious attempt at policymaking.
That’s not an entirely unreasonable point. Everyone involved in the process, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, knew with certainty that the bill wouldn’t come close to receiving support from 60 members in this procedural vote. But the Democratic leadership wanted to get senators on the record — again — showing the public that Republicans claim to want a conservative border bill, right up until they’re offered one.
“For years, we have heard that if you want to fix the border, then Congress needs to act. Today, we have a chance to act on the strongest border bill Congress has seen in generations,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “To those who’ve said for years Congress needs to act on the border: This bipartisan bill is the answer, and it’s time show we’re serious about fixing the problem.” If one were inclined to criticize the New York Democrat for engaging in some legislative theatrics, the point would be well taken, but let’s not lose sight of a highly relevant detail: What Schumer said was true. The latest survey from Public Policy Polling, meanwhile, found strong support for the compromise bill in several battleground states, suggesting voters will be hearing quite a bit more about this in the months to come. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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