Congress
‘It is never acceptable to berate police officers’: Tim Scott hits back at Nancy Mace over airport security incident
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) chided Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) on Tuesday for her confrontation with airport security, after the House member claimed she was treated unfairly by agents at the Charleston International Airport.
In a Tuesday evening Facebook post, Scott said Mace had invoked his name “for reasons that are unclear” and that his experiences at the airport had been positive “without exception.” He also thanked airport police for taking extra security precautions due to death threats lobbed against him.
“It is never acceptable to berate police officers, airport staff, and TSA agents who are simply doing their jobs, nor is it becoming of a Member of Congress to use such vulgar language when dealing with constituents,” Scott wrote.
The statement comes after an altercation last week, in which Mace “began loudly cursing and making derogatory comments” toward airport security, according to an incident report filed by a police officer. The confrontation apparently occurred when Mace attempted to use a restricted entrance following a mix-up about the vehicle she arrived in.
According to the report, Mace — who is running for governor in South Carolina — also said the security “would never treat Tim Scott like this” and berated TSA agents.
Mace has repeatedly criticized the security officials involved and defended her actions since Wired first reported the incident, accusing an American Airlines gate agent and several officers of conspiring to lie on the report and vowing legal action against them.
“All federally elected officials including Senators Scott and Graham use the same Crew Member Access Point at airports,” she wrote in one post. “That’s the federal security protocol. Maybe check your facts next time.”
Mace has posted on social media about the incident more than a dozen times, calling on Charleston International Airport CEO Elliott Summey and others to resign.
Scott also wrote that he does not use profanity “in public or private” and that members of Congress work for law enforcement, not vice versa.
“For those who want to invoke my name, please have the courtesy to note my actions and how I treat police officers, TSA agents, and fellow travelers with the respect they deserve,” Scott wrote in the post.
Congress
Congress ends shutdown, approves $1.2T in funding — and sets up DHS cliff
Congress approved a spending package Tuesday afternoon that secures funding for the vast majority of federal agencies through September, ending the second government shutdown in the span of four months.
But what’s left unfinished — funding for the Department of Homeland Security — will be a doozy, with partisan tensions over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda threatening another lapse for the embattled department that also includes TSA, FEMA and other crucial agencies.
The package the House passed in a bipartisan 217-214 vote Tuesday afternoon only funds DHS through next week. Democrats are refusing to support months of additional cash until Republicans agree to rein in the actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents following the fatal shootings last month of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
If Republicans don’t concede to enacting significant new mandates for DHS by the new Feb. 13 deadline, the department many Democrats have called “rogue” will face another funding lapse or short-term patch.
“We have a list that we want done, and we aren’t settling for half-measures,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), the No. 3 party leader, told reporters Tuesday. He warned that if Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson “don’t want to come to the table and negotiate real reform, then they’re going to have to explain to the American public why they’re shutting down agencies.”
Trump is expected to swiftly sign the legislation, ending the partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning after the Senate passed the altered package, punting the measure back to the House.
By advancing the trillion-dollar package, Congress has approved more than 95 percent of the government funding it approves each year to run federal agencies, after clearing full funding for some agencies in November and another slate in January.
Under the legislation that now awaits the president’s signature, the Pentagon and all remaining domestic agencies besides DHS will get new funding levels through the end of the fiscal year, which started with the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
“We finalized true, bipartisan, bicameral bills to fully fund our government in a member driven, district focused way,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said on the House floor. “Funding the government is not an optional exercise. It’s the most basic duty we have in Congress.”
Only 21 Democrats voted yes on passage, highlighting the challenge leaders face over the next 10 days in negotiating new immigration enforcement rules that can attract enough Democratic support for funding DHS into the fall.
“I refuse to send another cent to Stephen Miller or Kristi Noem,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said this week. “They are undermining our Constitution, and the department they run is murdering American citizens in the streets.”
To ensure Democratic leaders on both sides of the Capitol are aligned heading into negotiations with Republicans over changes to DHS immigration operations, Jeffries is set to meet Tuesday afternoon with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
House Democrats are demanding that Jeffries have a seat at the bargaining table after many groused this week about the altered funding package Senate Democrats brokered with the White House.
“They need to talk to Hakeem — the House and Senate are equal partners,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said in an interview.
House Democrats contend that they have a better understanding of Trump’s immigration enforcement actions in communities throughout the country, as well as the sentiment of Americans.
“We are the ones that are closest to the anger and the frustration of our constituents,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in an interview. “We need [Senate Democrats] to start negotiating with us and carrying out our demands instead of constantly caving to Republicans.”
Congress
Shutdown end in sight after spending package clears key House hurdle
A spending package that would fund the vast majority of the federal government cleared a key procedural vote Tuesday, setting up votes later in the day to send the measure to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature.
Final passage of the measure, which also includes a funding patch for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, would end the partial government shutdown that began Saturday.
Republicans stayed mostly united on the 217-215 test vote to advance the package that would fund the Pentagon and departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education through Sept. 30 and less than two weeks of funding for Homeland Security Department.
The short-term DHS funding is intended to give lawmakers time to negotiate reforms to how ICE and CBP officers execute the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, with the hope of tamping down instances where federal officers have killed U.S. citizens. Republicans have their own demands, such as blocking federal funding on “sanctuary cities” that don’t cooperate with federal enforcement agencies.
The largely unified GOP vote came on the heels of a White House whip operation that headed off a handful of defections from within Speaker Mike Johnson’s party. Trump’s call for there to be no changes to the package in the House helped quell an effort from hard-line conservatives to attach a partisan elections bill, known as the SAVE Act, to the rule.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Majority Leader Steve Scalise also did some personal whipping on the House floor during the vote series, circulating between some of the most hard-line members of the Republican Conference in the leadup to and during the rule vote. It was a nail-biter for the leaders, with the vote held open for nearly an hour as they tried to bring their GOP colleagues in line.
Final passage of the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion funding package is expected Tuesday afternoon on a bipartisan vote.
Congress
No filibuster deal with House conservatives, Thune says
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Tuesday he has made no decisions about bypassing Senate filibuster rules to skirt the normal 60-vote margin required to advance legislation in the chamber.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said Monday she had White House-brokered “assurances” that the Senate would allow for a “standing” or “talking” filibuster that could allow the SAVE Act, a House-passed elections bill pushed by conservative hard-liners, to be enacted into law.
Thune was not party to Luna’s conversation with President Donald Trump, which prompted Luna to indicate she would support a massive spending bill moving through the House on Tuesday. Many GOP senators have long opposed weakening the 60-vote margin, believing it would open the door to far-reaching Democratic policies.
“Some of our colleagues in the Senate are interested in it,” Thune said. “We will have a conversation about it. Nothing decided.”
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