{"id":18424,"date":"2026-01-30T17:31:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/lindsey-graham-signals-path-to-defuse-funding-threat\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T17:31:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:31:55","slug":"lindsey-graham-signals-path-to-defuse-funding-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/lindsey-graham-signals-path-to-defuse-funding-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindsey Graham signals path to defuse funding threat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Lindsey Graham laid out a path to pass a funding deal Friday<\/a>, potentially defusing a standoff that threatens to extend a potential government shutdown set to begin within hours.<\/p>\n

Senate Republican leaders believe they can move forward with approval of the spending agreement notched by President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats by offering votes on amendments demanded by the South Carolina Republican \u2014 one related to cities that don\u2019t comply with federal immigration laws and two changes related to the defunct investigation into the 2020 election led by former special counsel Jack Smith.<\/p>\n

Giving Graham those amendment votes would require sign-on from all 99 of his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m asking this body to guarantee me that vote, and we move forward,\u201d Graham said about his sanctuary cities proposal.<\/p>\n

Addressing the Smith language, which would have allowed senators to sue for up to $500,000 per incident in damages, Graham said he wants the Senate to vote on substitute language expanding who can sue if their phone records are seized and requiring notification when senators are impacted.<\/p>\n

“We’ll fix the $500,000 \u2014 count me in \u2014 but you took the notification out,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI am demanding a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The apparent pathway to Senate passage represents a reversal from Thursday night, when the chamber appeared stuck after Graham railed against the spending bill as a \u201cbad deal\u201d and vowed to block its speedy approval.<\/p>\n

While there were multiple resolved sticking points as of Thursday night, Graham\u2019s objections were widely viewed as the main obstacle.<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s rebellion is tied to the spending legislation including a House-passed provision undoing a law allowing senators to receive cash payouts if they had their phone records seized by Smith\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

The provision\u2019s inclusion in the Senate funding agreement was first reported by POLITICO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Graham, who was among the senators who had records subpoenaed, railed against the provision on Thursday night \u2014 though he argued his interest was not personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about me \u2014 190 private groups had their phone records messed with. I want notification,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lindsey Graham laid out a path to pass a funding deal Friday, potentially defusing a standoff that threatens to extend a potential government shutdown set to begin within hours. Senate Republican leaders believe they can move forward with approval of the spending agreement notched by President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats by offering votes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}