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\n Photo: Anna Rose Layden\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
This has been dubbed \u201cHell Week\u201d<\/a> for Mike Johnson<\/a>, as his House Republicans battle their Senate counterparts and one another on a broad range of crucial issues. But the Speaker got a big win on Wednesday night. After leaving the vote open for a remarkable five hours, the GOP leadership managed to get the Senate-passed budget resolution setting up a new reconciliation bill across the finish line<\/a> by a spare 214-212 party-line vote.<\/p>\n This means House and Senate Republicans are now on the same page about a \u201cskinny\u201d \u2014 or, as Senate GOP leader John Thune<\/a> called it, \u201canorexic\u201d<\/a> \u2014 reconciliation bill limited to funding immigration-enforcement agencies to the tune of about $70 billion through the end of the Trump administration. Using the same procedure deployed to pass last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a>, Republicans are on track to stuff ICE and the Border Patrol full of new dollars (beyond what was already provided in the OBBBA<\/a>) without any of the \u201cguardrails\u201d Democrats had demanded<\/a> in stopping the original DHS funding bill.<\/p>\n In theory, at least, this action should pave the way to an end of the record-breaking (75 days and counting) DHS shutdown<\/a>, which House Republicans have perpetuated for a month out of fury at a Senate Republican deal<\/a> that funded the non-immigration functions of the department. But it\u2019s also possible the extremists of the House Freedom Caucus will continue to hold out for a DHS funding bill with explicit language prohibiting any future cuts in ICE or CBP spending, which could unravel the deal cut in the Senate.<\/p>\n Whatever happens to DHS in the short term, Republicans can now formally act on their new not-so-big Beautiful Bill, which won\u2019t require (or receive) any Democratic votes and cannot be filibustered in the Senate. Donald Trump<\/a> has set a June 1 deadline<\/a> for that bill reaching his desk. Thune and Johnson secured near-unanimous support for this strategy by assuring their members that they\u2019ll soon get a chance to move a third Beautiful Bill<\/a>. This would contain all sorts of wondrous conservative priorities, ranging from new pre-midterm tax goodies to social safety-net cuts to abortion restrictions to funding for the Iran war and perhaps even national voter ID requirements. Whether that actually happens or not, the congressional GOP (with the concurrence of the White House) has clearly decided there\u2019s no need to cut any deals with the hated opposition between now and November. It takes an enormous amount of work to keep Trump\u2019s party moving in sync, but when it comes to 2026 legislation, it\u2019s that or it\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n