With Senate gone for the weekend, key negotiators stick around to work on border deal
The Senate may be gone for the weekend, but key negotiators scrambling to complete border provisions as part of a supplemental aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan are still in the Capitol Friday, continuing meetings with members of the White House to strike a deal.
The group, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and James Lankford, R-Okla., met with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Shuwanza Goff and staffs for both Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, met for about two hours Friday morning. Meetings are scheduled for later Friday as well.
"Obviously we're all here, that's good news," Murphy said.
The conversations in the room continue to be productive, senators told ABC News. It's not yet clear what the universe of possible agreements on border policy are, but lawmakers seem more optimistic that they're approaching a workable solution.
The meetings between negotiators continued in earnest Friday after Schumer announced his plans Thursday afternoon to keep the Senate in session next week, in part to buy negotiators more time to strike a deal. But turning any sort of agreement, which has not yet been reached, into legislative text in time to hold a vote on it, as Schumer would like, will be quite the task.
"It's admittedly a very aggressive goal to get this on the floor next week," Murphy said. "But there's a lot of good faith in that room. There's still a lot of disagreements. We continue to work at it."
There have been concerns about what might happen if a Senate bill is passed and left languishing for the House to ridicule for weeks prior to their return from the holiday recess. But Murphy said with the daunting stack of tasks facing Congress when it returns in January, it benefits the Senate to move forward now.
"I worry every day about the House of Representatives and their functionality. The problem is we have a really tough calendar in January," Murphy said. "We are going to be in an immediate conversation about a shutdown in January, so it would really help everybody if the Senate got this done now and it only needed House passage in January."
Mayorkas' involvement, along with other White House officials, has helped to speed negotiations along.
"Our goal is to try to make the border operations more manageable," Murphy said. "You need the managers at the table in order to know the consequences of the policy. And you obviously need the White House at the table because they need to support any piece of legislation we release."
Senators said they expect their meetings with the White House to continue through the weekend. They already have time scheduled for Saturday.
