Sen. Angus King says he won’t vote for package with ICE funding, but “we don’t have to have a shutdown”

Washington — Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine said Sunday that he won’t vote for a package to fund the government if it includes funding for ICE, as lawmakers scramble to pass a slate of funding bills to stave off a partial government shutdown by Friday — but he argued that “we don’t have to have a shutdown.”

“I hate shutdowns,” King said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” 

“But I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances — what they’re doing in my state, what we saw yesterday in Minneapolis,” the senator continued, referring to an immigration enforcement operation launched in Maine last week.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Saturday, after the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Minneapolis man by federal agents, that Democrats will not put up the necessary votes to advance a funding package to prevent a partial government shutdown if it includes funds for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

So far, six of the 12 appropriations bills have been passed by Congress and signed into law. The Senate has until Friday, Jan. 30 to approve the final six bills, which have been packaged together, after they passed the House in recent weeks. That package includes a bill that would fund DHS until the end of the fiscal year. If those final six bills aren’t passed by the Senate and signed by President Trump by Friday, the agencies that they cover will begin to shut down.

King, who caucuses with Democrats, was among a trio of senators who negotiated a deal with Republicans to reopen the government during the longest shutdown in history last year. He argued that “there’s an easy way out” of the funding fight, saying Senate Majority Leader John Thune should separate the DHS bill from the other five funding measures. 

“If those bills pass, 96% of the federal government is funded,” King said. “Take up DHS by itself, let’s have an honest negotiation, put some guardrails on what’s going on, some accountability, and that would solve this problem.”