The Senate sent its deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security back to the House Thursday morning — marking what should be the beginning of the end of a historic partial government shutdown.

The Senate’s action, taken in a mostly empty chamber just after 7 a.m., came less than a day after President Donald Trump effectively endorsed a two-track strategy for DHS: funding most of it through a bipartisan deal with Democrats then using the party-line budget reconciliation process for immigration enforcement activities.

That means undertaking a redo of the bill Senate Majority Leader John Thune moved through the Senate last week only to see it rejected by the House, where conservatives balked at separating out enforcement funding.

Now the bill is headed back across the Capitol. The Senate approved Thune’s motion Thursday to set aside the House’s plan, an eight-week all-DHS stopgap, and instead give it a second chance to pass the Senate bill, which omits funding for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection that Democrats oppose.

Speaker Mike Johnson signed off Wednesday on the two-track strategy, effectively capitulating after torching the Senate bill Friday as a “joke.” But he could still struggle to move it quickly given early opposition from some members on the right flank of his conference.

While the House will convene for a brief session Thursday morning, it will only take one member to prevent the DHS funding bill from passing, and leaders are not expected to attempt it. Johnson will likely have two more opportunities next week, otherwise he will need to wait until all of his members are back and the chamber is fully in session April 14.

Even once both chambers clear the Senate bill, they will face a tight timeline for the second part of the Trump-blessed plan, delivering an immigration enforcement bill to his desk by June 1.

House Republicans are expected to convene a conference call at 11 a.m. Thursday to talk through the DHS strategy, including assurances leaders have gotten from the White House and Senate about passing another reconciliation bill.

The Senate is expected to move first to approve a budget resolution that will unlock the GOP-only immigration bill, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private strategy, and could adopt the fiscal blueprint for the final bill by the end of the month.

Hill Republicans so far haven’t needed to weigh in on President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom plans, but a court ruling might leave them no choice but to engage.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the administration must pause construction pending “express authorization from Congress.” Trump had unilaterally torn down the historic East Wing and has forged ahead with plans to replace it with a $400 million, privately financed ballroom.

Trump’s immediate response was to refute, in a Truth Social post, the premise that he needed Congress’ permission to proceed, and his administration is now appealing the ruling in court. Some of his allies in Congress have been quick to offer support while making clear they have no plans to take action.

Lexi Hamel, a spokesperson for Rep. Mike Simpson, said in a statement Wednesday the Idaho Republican “believes the ruling is stupid” and that “nobody raised hell when Roosevelt or Truman renovated the White House (at taxpayer expense).”

But if Trump’s appeal fails, congressional Republicans will have to choose between trying to pass a bill that would give the White House clear authority to forge ahead or risk allowing delays in the project that already had a target completion date of 2028 — not long before the end of Trump’s term.

Mike Davis, a conservative judicial activist who is close to the White House, said in an interview Republicans “need to” take action.

“Are they just going to let the ballroom just sit there in disarray … they’re just going to let the construction zone be a fucking disaster for the next three years?” Davis added. “Like, come on.”

But most Republicans who sit on committees with direct jurisdiction of White House and public property matters have so far been silent on whether they’ll shepherd through legislation to protect one of Trump’s top priorities. Doing so could put them in the crosshairs of Democrats, who have already made clear they think the ballroom is proof the president cares more about entertaining wealthy donors than passing policies to lower the costs of everyday goods — and who, in the Senate, have the ability to block any ballroom authorization measure from ever reaching Trump’s desk.

“This is a very clear test of Republican priorities,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Tuesday evening. “They can either bring up the Senate-passed bill to end the DHS shutdown … or they can bring up a bill to give President Trump permission to build his $350 million ballroom to host his billionaire friends.”

The House Natural Resources Committee and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources are responsible for authorizing projects on land operated by the National Park Service, on which the White House resides. Spokespeople for the chairs of these respective committees, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, did not respond to requests for comment this week.

The spokesperson for Simpson, the chair of the House funding panel that deals with the Interior Department, said funding for the White House project was not in his purview. Spokespeople for the chairs of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees with jurisdiction over the Executive Office of the President also did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Democrats have made prior, unsuccessful efforts to explicitly ban money from going toward ballroom construction as part of the appropriations process.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), a staunch Trump ally who has previously proposed adding Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore, said in a text message Wednesday he was unaware of moves by any of his GOP colleagues to introduce legislation that would authorize ballroom construction.

Speaker Mike Johnson has previously defended Trump’s decision to build a ballroom, pointing to a number of presidents who have renovated or added to the White House, including former President Barack Obama. Spokespeople for Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not return requests for comment Wednesday on the matter.

But privately, Republicans are not yet convinced they need to get involved now, given it’s an ongoing legal battle and lawmakers already have a full plate of issues to attend to in the immediate future — including ending the DHS shutdown, reauthorizing controversial spy powers and meeting Trump’s deadline for delivering a GOP-only immigration enforcement bill.

Asked if the administration would push for Congress to pass legislation to remove any doubt or chance of delay, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle offered a statement critical of the court ruling.

“President Trump clearly has the legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did,” said Ingle in a statement. “We will immediately appeal this egregious decision and are confident we will prevail.”

Davis, the judicial activist, suggested that Republicans codify their approval of the project through a budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple majority for passage in both chambers. There are talks of putting two party-line policy packages together in the coming months, first to deal with ICE and Border Patrol funding and another encompassing a broader range of GOP priorities — but it’s not clear green-lighting Trump’s ballroom would comply with the strict rules governing the reconciliation process.

This isn’t the first time the courts have restrained Trump for failing to seek congressional approval for his unilateral moves: The Supreme Court recently struck down his unilateral tariffs, and lower courts have forced the ousting of U.S. attorneys who never received Senate confirmation.

Trump’s lawyers have argued there are historical precedents for his White House ballroom project, which U.S. District Judge Richard Leon directly addressed in his ruling. But while smaller projects such as Trump’s 2019 tennis pavilion “were never challenged in court,” major expansions in 1933 and 1942 — which included construction of the East Wing Trump is seeking to replace — were authorized “through general appropriations,” Leon wrote.

And a significant White House renovation under President Harry Truman was authorized and funded in a standalone 1949 law that prohibited any “change of [the] present architectural appearance of the exterior of the mansion or the interior of its main floor.”

Yet the argument that past presidents have undertaken White House construction work without incident has been popular with the few Republican lawmakers who have so far chosen to weigh in on the ruling. Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) is among those claiming past presidents have used private funds to make additions to the White House without congressional assent.

“President FDR built an indoor swimming pool with private funds. President Obama built a basketball court with private funds,” Gooden wrote on X. “Yet a single judge can block President Trump from building a PRIVATELY FUNDED ballroom that would benefit generations to come.”

Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report. 

Democratic Party leaders filed suit Wednesday to block President Donald Trump’s attempt to limit voting by mail ahead of the midterm elections.

Democrats argue that an executive order Trump signed at the White House on Tuesday, which creates an approved list of absentee voters among other actions, is an unconstitutional interference in the power of states to regulate elections.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association in suing to challenge the order.

“President Trump possesses no such authority to order such a sweeping change to American elections,” the suit argues.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on the lawsuit, but Trump dismissed the possibility of legal challenges to his order at the signing ceremony for the order.

“I don’t know how it can be challenged. … You may find a rogue judge,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “You get a lot of rogue judges, very bad, bad people, very bad judges. But that’s the only way that can be changed, and hopefully we’ll win an appeal.”

Trump’s executive order also threatens to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply and directs the attorney general to investigate anyone who wrongfully distributes mail-in ballots.

It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s longstanding complaints about the way Americans vote as he pushes Congress to pass the GOP-backed SAVE America Act, which has cleared the House but faces an uphill battle in the Senate. He has falsely claimed on several occasions that voting by mail is uniquely vulnerable to voter fraud, despite the fact that he cast his own ballot by that method last week in a Florida congressional election.

Republican states have pushed ahead with their own plans to add citizenship requirements to voting laws, but the measures have also drawn swift legal challenges.

Democrats argued the executive order violates the First, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments and “dramatically exceeds his highly limited constitutional and statutory authority when it comes to regulating elections.” The lawsuit also argues that the Postal Service is being asked to go beyond its domain in building a list of eligible absentee voters.

Democratic attorneys general have been bracing for the possibility of the Trump administration interfering in this fall’s midterm elections, huddling in hotel conference rooms and over Zoom calls to war-game strategies to push back.