Washington gridlock has a funny way of collapsing the moment reality starts knocking on the door. The Department of Homeland Security shutdown is now dragging on long enough that even some Senate Democrats are starting to wobble, and the messaging discipline inside their caucus is beginning to crack.
Republicans have spent the past several days hammering Democrats over the standoff, arguing that the party is refusing to fund core immigration enforcement while trying to reopen smaller pieces of the agency one at a time. In other words, fund the politically comfortable parts, leave the controversial ones hanging.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso did not mince words about what he thinks is going on.
“And that’s at a time when our homeland is under attack, all warning lights are flashing red, and they want to peel apart, piece by piece, the Department of Homeland Security, the comprehensive department of our government to protect the American people, because they want to stand with illegal immigrant criminals,” Barrasso said.
That accusation is at the center of the shutdown fight. Republicans say they have repeatedly offered temporary funding measures to keep DHS operating while negotiations continue over the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Democrats, according to GOP leadership, keep blocking those proposals.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the offers have been sitting on the table for days.
“I assume the Democrat leader is aware of the fact that we have tried repeatedly to fund everything temporarily to allow the negotiations over the ICE budget to continue,” Thune said.
Democratic leadership is sticking to a different strategy. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats want to pass individual funding bills for parts of DHS like the Transportation Security Administration and FEMA while negotiations continue over immigration enforcement.
“We don’t have to tie that disagreement up and use people at the airports and American citizens as hostages,” Schumer said.
The problem with that approach is becoming obvious. Republicans see it as an attempt to sidestep the immigration debate entirely while still claiming credit for funding popular agencies.
Now the political pressure is starting to show.
Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin recently voted against funding DHS during the standoff. Now she is signaling that the department should be funded after all. The timing is difficult to ignore, since the shift comes shortly after a terror attack in her home state forced the security debate into the spotlight.
When homeland security becomes more than a talking point, political calculations tend to change quickly.
Other Democrats are still trying to flip the argument back onto Republicans. Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen criticized the GOP for blocking a TSA focused funding measure, claiming Republicans “don’t care about their constituents, the traveling public, and the folks who work there who are not part of this discussion or this argument.”
But the longer the shutdown continues, the harder it becomes for Democrats to maintain a unified message.
Slotkin’s sudden reversal is a pretty loud signal that the pressure is building. When voters start connecting political maneuvering to real world security concerns, the appetite for partisan games shrinks fast. In Washington, that realization often arrives about three weeks later than it should.
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