WASHINGTON — The mood on Capitol Hill was more optimistic Sunday afternoon after a bipartisan group of senators hashed out a plan to reopen the government.
The group of 22 senators emerged from their second day of talks and marched their proposal to their respective leaders, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The Democrats left the meeting with Schumer unsure of the next steps, but Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said those next steps are out of their hands.
“I think Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell have to talk,” Klobuchar said. “I think we’re hours away here.”
Over in McConnell’s office, Republicans in the bipartisan meeting made their case, as well.
“I feel like now would be a good time for them to talk,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said as he left the meeting.
And Schumer and McConnell did meet. It was the first time they’d done so since the shutdown started Friday at midnight. They didn’t leave with a deal, according to Schumer’s spokesman, Matt House, but the standoff seems to have softened slightly.
Meanwhile, a group of moderate senators from each party, organized by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, started their own separate negotiations.
Collins was instrumental in ending the last government shutdown in 2013. While leaders McConnell and then-Democratic Leader Harry Reid were stuck in a stalemate, she forged a bipartisan path forward then.
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Sunday’s bipartisan proposal — which might still go nowhere — comes eight hours before a scheduled 1:00 a.m. procedural vote on a plan put forth by McConnell to fund the government for three weeks, until Feb.8. It would also extend the low-income children’s health insurance program, CHIP, for six years and suspend some Obamacare taxes.
The group was working on a process on how to address some of the outstanding issues that Congress has yet to agree on, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a two-year spending bill, disaster aid, opioid funding, children’s health insurance and insurance market stabilization legislation.
Their work could break the ice of congressional leaders who reconvened the House and the Senate at the Capitol on Sunday with plenty of bluster but few prospects for a bargain as the second day of the government shutdown ticked on.
“First prize in government shutdown is you get to be dumb, not dumber. That’s the best you can hope for — not to be looked at as the dumbest guy in the room — or gal,” Graham told reporters.
The stark divide between both parties was on full display as lawmakers took to the Sunday shows to assign fault for the funding impasse on their political opponents, while offering little optimism that a compromise is on the horizon.
“You can’t blame Donald Trump for Senate Democrats shutting down the government. They shut down the government with no endgame in sight,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said on CBS News’ “Face The Nation.”
Related: Government shutdown 2018: What’s open and what’s closed?
Democrats, meanwhile, have dubbed the stalled negotiations the “Trump shutdown,” and say the GOP’s control of both the White House and Congress puts the blame squarely on their shoulders.
“I wish the president would help us. At some point his leadership could make the difference,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on NBC News’ “Meet The Press.” He declined to offer a prediction if the government will be funded by Monday night.
Still, the heart of the contentious deliberations has centered on immigration reform and the protections for so-called Dreamers, the children of undocumented immigrants. President Donald Trump moved to undo the Obama-era program that is now set to expire March 5, and the White House has said any move to reauthorize the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals needs to be accompanied by funding for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
“This shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow,” McConnell said in a speech opening the Senate floor. “Today would be a good day to end it.”
Schumer called on Trump to return to the bargaining table. “I’m willing to seal the deal, to sit and work right now, with the president or anyone he designates. Let’s get it done.”
“This is the Trump shutdown, only President Trump can end it.” Schumer said. “We Democrats are at the table, ready to negotiate. The president needs to pull up a chair and end this shutdown.” But McConnell was quick to note that it’s Democrats in the Senate who are using procedural rules to block passage of the short-term bill and Republicans are calling the standoff the “Schumer shutdown.”
Skeptical Democrats maintain that the weeks-long spending bill being considered in the Senate is just a stalling tactic that will not lead to a serious legislative debate about immigration reform.
“We need to have clear assurance that if we can pass … a bill in the Senate, it’ll be taken up in the House and won’t be ignored,” Durbin said Sunday.
Vice President Mike Pence, however, signaled in a speech to U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East that immigration reform is not on the table until the government is up and running again.
“We’re going to demand that they reopen the government,” Pence said. “In fact, we’re not going to reopen negotiations on illegal immigration until they reopen the government and give you, our soldiers and your families, the benefits and wages you’ve earned.”