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Senate to vote on dueling government funding bills | TheHill

posted onJanuary 23, 2019
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Article snippet: Senate leadership on Tuesday struck an agreement to vote on dueling proposals to reopen the federal government. Senate Majority Leader MORE (R-Ky.) set up two votes for Thursday afternoon, both of which will require 60 votes to advance. The first vote will be on MORE's proposal to reopen the government, provide $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall and extend legal protections to some immigrants for three years. If that fails, the Senate would then vote on a three-week continuing resolution (CR) to fund a quarter of the government through Feb. 8. Trump's proposal would need to win over seven Democrats, in addition every Senate Republican, in order to overcome the filibuster. No Democratic senator has said they will back it. Sen. MORE (D-W.Va.), the only Democrat still in the chamber who supported a larger Trump-proposed immigration deal last year, is undecided on the new, more narrow effort, according to a spokesman. Meanwhile, Democrats, who have 47 seats, will need 13 Republicans to advance the stopgap bill. The Senate previously passed a CR in late December to fund the quarter of the government impacted by the shutdown through Feb. 8, only for Trump to come out against the measure because it didn't include additional funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. A handful of Republican senators have floated passing a three-week continuing resolution (CR) in exchange for the Senate Appropriations Committee agreeing to take up Trump's border request. But that i... Link to the full article to read more

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