Senate progressives threaten to oppose government funding bill over DACA fight

A growing number of lawmakers from the Senate's progressive wing are warning they will oppose a December government funding bill without a deal on a key Obama-era immigration program.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are the latest senators to link the two issues, foreshadowing the likely end-of-the-year showdown lawmakers will face.

"Trump must make good on his promise to sign a bill protecting Dreamers. I won't vote for any spending bill without a permanent DACA fix," Sanders said in a tweet on Friday.

A spokeswoman for Booker said the New Jersey Democrat would also oppose the funding bill if it doesn't include a fix for the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Booker said on Friday that Trump is throwing "the lives and futures of hundreds of thousands of dreamers into chaos and uncertainty."

"I want solutions to protect these kids, and won’t vote for a spending bill that doesn’t include one. It’s an issue of basic decency and morality," he said.

Trump announced in September that he would phase out the program, which allows undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children to work and go to school without the fear of deportation.

Unless Congress passes legislation by early March, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, currently in the country illegally, will be at risk of being deported.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) became the first Senate Democrat to warn she wouldn't support a December government funding bill without an agreement providing protections for the DACA recipients.

“I will not vote for an end-of-year spending bill until we are clear about what we are going to do to protect and take care of our DACA young people in this country,” she said during a rally on Capitol Hill last week.

On Thursday, Trump and Senate Republicans agreed during a closed-door meeting to oppose including an immigration deal in the December funding bill.

Hours after the meeting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) followed Harris's lead by drawing a similar red line.

"Do your job, Mr. President. Stop playing politics [and] fix this," she said in a tweet, asserting that Trump is "willing to abandon Dreamers after all."

The Democratic senators, who are both considered possible contenders for the party's 2020 White House nomination, don't have the ability to sink the government funding bill on their own.

But Republicans will need to win over at least eight Democrats if they want to be able to overcome the Senate's 60-vote procedural hurdle.

Lawmakers are facing a Dec. 8 deadline to reach a funding deal and avoid a government shutdown.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...bill-over-daca

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...hutdown-244533

Bernie support for us is HUGE

Warren and Bernie are the de facto face of the future of Dems

Hopefully there will be no traitor Dem Senators

Good thing Trump is a fucking idiot

So easy to stand up against such idiots

This is going to be a crazy showdown that will go down in history books

We need to organize something when the shutdown happens

Please don't post this on a public forum.

I just did.

Bernie votes with the party and holds very little sway, he got a bit too relevant in 2016 primary because he was the only major contender to Clinton.

If you want to be concerned about Senators flipping don't forget that Joe Manchin (D-WV) abstained and Jon Tester (D-MT) voted no on the Dream Act in 2010. Then again both voted yes on CIR in 2013.

So well, you want to watch those two because fuck knows what they'll do. Especially Manchin, the guy is basically a DINO. We might as well count him as a Republican for any purpose other than who holds the majority leader seat.

If there's one good thing we have going for us, it's that democrats hang together (or they will hang separately).

So what should we make the theme song of this shutdown, definitely something fire related.

Manchin, as have all the democrats, have stuck together through Obamacare repeal and now tax reform.