Congress
Murkowski: ‘I’m not attached to’ Republican label
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she felt “more comfortable” with no party label than with “an identity as a Republican,” an escalation of the Alaska senator’s occasional bucking of her party as the chamber readies itself for a slew of confirmation battles over Trump administration nominees.
“I’m not attached to a label, I’d rather be that ‘no label.’ I’d rather be that person that is just known for trying to do right by the state and the people that I serve, regardless of party, and I’m totally good and comfortable with that,” Murkowski said during a discussion hosted by the centrist group No Labels at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
Later on during the discussion, Murkowski clarified that she is “still a Republican” and has “never shed my party label.”
“We’ve got a system in the Senate where there are two sides of the aisle, and I have to sit on one side or I have to sit on the other,” she added.
Murkowski, who has served as a Republican senator from Alaska since 2003, has occasionally defied her party and criticized its members’ willingness to kowtow to President-elect Donald Trump.
“I don’t think I’ve made any secret of the fact that I’m more of a Ronald Reagan Republican than I am a Trump Republican,” she said Thursday. “And someone said, ‘Well, you aren’t really a Republican at all.’ And I said, ‘You can call me whatever you want to call me.’”
Murkowski is seen as one of Democrats’ top hopes to block Trump’s most contentious Cabinet picks, alongside fellow centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
On Thursday, Murkowski predicted “it’s going to be hard in these next four years” because the Trump administration’s “approach is going to be: Everybody tow the line. Everybody line up. We got you here, and if you want to survive, you better be good. Don’t get on Santa’s naughty list here, because we will primary you.”
She pointed specifically to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), whose swing vote could sink Pete Hegseth’s bid to run the Pentagon.
Despite being “one of the more conservative, principled Republican leaders in the Senate right now,” Murkowski said, Republicans are slamming Ernst “for not being good enough” — and she said she is worried the Iowa senator could be primaried.
Congress
White House releases DHS funding offer
The White House on Tuesday released a letter detailing changes it is willing to make to the Department of Homeland Security as it looks to secure a deal with Democrats to end the nearly five-week long partial government shutdown.
The move is the Trump administration’s attempt to show it is making a good faith effort after Democrats derided their proposal as unserious and comes as staffing issues at the Transportation Security Administration grow more acute — leading to longer wait times at airports across the country.
The White House, in five points, said it was willing to codify a number of policy changes, including an expansion of the use of body cameras for federal immigration agents; the limit of enforcement in certain sensitive locations, including hospitals and schools; greater oversight of DHS detention facilities; the enforcement of visible officer identification and the adherence to existing law prohibiting the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens.
“We feel that this offer is serious — that it is a good faith attempt to continue to try to come to a reasonable and expeditious conclusion to the shutdown, which we are now seeing is becoming ever more disruptive on Americans’ travel plans, as well as the security mission at the department,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to describe the private talks.
The White House offer includes some public safety exceptions for the policy changes. For sensitive locations, there is a carve-out for “national security, flight risks and public safety,” and undercover officers would not have to display identification. Undercover officers would also not be required to wear body cameras.
The proposal also doesn’t address two of Democrats main concerns: requiring officials to obtain a judicial warrant before entering private property and prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks. Administration officials have previously said the warrants are a redline.
“We’re trying to move a little bit, but they’ve got to get serious. They are not getting serious,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday. “The key issues of warrants when you bust in someone’s house. The key issue of identity, of police and no masks. They haven’t budged on that.”
Spokespeople for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the White House letter.
It’s the first time in the monthslong negotiation that the White House has released details about its proposal. Republicans have been eager for the White House to share details of its offers to validate their view that the administration had moved toward Democrats on some issues.
The White House letter argued that the majority of Democrats’ demands would “make it impossible to fully protect American citizens from dangerous criminal aliens and expose law enforcement and their families to increasing threats of violence.”
The senior White House official said that at this time, there are no plans for President Donald Trump to meet with Schumer or Democrats to discuss the impasse. The president has tapped border czar Tom Homan — who co-signed the letter with James Braid, the White House director of the Office of Legislative Affairs — to take the lead on working on the policy changes to end the government shutdown.
“There are a lot of technical issues that have to be worked out” for a White House meeting to be a “productive exercise,” the senior official said. “Although, of course, the president is going to make that decision, and at any time, that could be something that does occur.”
Congress
Senate bills survive
Threats from some hard-right House Republicans to block any Senate bill until the SAVE America Act passes appear to be falling flat.
A bill from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to reauthorize small business grant programs passed 345-41 Tuesday, a day after another Senate bill, aimed at recovering Nazi-looted art, passed on a voice vote.
Congress
Senate launches debate on SAVE America Act with endgame uncertain
Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to launch debate on a GOP elections bill President Donald Trump called his “No. 1 priority” in Congress. They are preparing to keep it on the floor at least into next week.
Senators voted 51-48 to take up the House-passed SAVE America Act that would institute new citizenship and photo ID requirements in order to participate in elections. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted against opening debate, and Rep. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) did not vote. Both had aired concerns about the process.
The Senate is expected to spend days, and potentially weeks, debating the bill in a bid to pacify conservatives and corner Democrats who oppose the new election restrictions. The debate is expected to include some late-night and weekend sessions.
But in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, discussions of the bill devolved into an increasingly contentious GOP-on-GOP fight over how far the party should go to try to pass it.
Conservative hard-liners, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), want to force a “talking filibuster,” which they argue can overcome the usual 60-vote legislative threshold by requiring Democrats to hold the floor in order to block the bill.
But after weeks of internal conversations, Republicans have rejected that effort, which they fear could tie up the floor indefinitely and potentially let Democrats hijack the Senate agenda by forcing amendment votes on their own priorities.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to call up several amendments, including a proposal to expand the bill to include Trump-backed restrictions on mail voting, on transgender women participating in women’s sports and on gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Thune’s move will limit Democrats’ ability to call up their own amendments and try to sidetrack the bill. Democrats have other options to frustrate the GOP, however, such as moving to adjourn the Senate or killing the bill.
Lee continues to advocate for a more aggressive approach: “If your senators don’t support using the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, you might need to replace them,” he wrote on X late Monday night.
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