As President Donald Trump’s popularity continues its historic decline and Republican infighting reaches new heights, blame for the ongoing partial government shutdown falls squarely on the shoulders of Speaker of the House Little Mikey Johnson. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and the rest of the U.S. Senate sent Johnson and the House a funding package that they whiffed on. This error in judgment has extended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history into its fifth week.

Then, to add to the dumpster fire, Johnson sent the House home for its two-week Easter break, leaving Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) agents and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel angry and unpaid. President Trump signed an executive order on Friday, freeing up funds to provide partial back payments for agents. However, this is only a temporary solution.

How Little Mikey Johnson Derailed DHS Funding

What did Little Mikey do to torpedo the DHS funding package? It’s really more of what he didn’t do. Overnight on Friday, the Senate, on a 2 am voice vote, passed legislation to fund DHS, excluding funds for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection related to immigration enforcement, and sent it to the House for passage. All of this time, Trump seemed to be temporarily in synch with the Senate’s decision.

But when it arrived at the House, Johnson declared it DOA, and the Republicans in the caucus passed a bill to fund all of DHS for 60 days. The bill, however, also included an added poison dagger. As part of Johnson’s and the Republicans’ proposed legislation, they included the SAVE Act, which, if enacted, could disenfranchise over 21 million eligible voters.

DHS Funding Has Become a Political Volleyball

Johnson and the House passed their version of the bill, knowing it would have zero chance of attracting any Democratic supporters, save for perhaps John Fetterman in the Senate. The Senate included specific provisions in its bill designed to rein in many of the excesses of ICE protocols that led to three months of unrest in Minnesota and the deaths of activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents.

The version that Johnson and the House passed is void of the restrictions that Democrats want to place on immigration enforcement agents. The speaker was adamant that no DHS bill would pass the House unless it included funding for immigration enforcement. At this point, the president turned his back on Thune and threw his support behind the House package.

The main sticking points for Democrats in not voting to fund all of DHS are that any legislation must include a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and a requirement that warrants be issued by a judge, not just the agency, for enforcement agents to enter homes. This, after the Deportation Data Project revealed that 63% of Minnesotans who were arrested during Operation had no criminal record.

Two Major Developments

Yesterday, President Trump announced he would sign an executive order creating a national list of citizens to determine voting eligibility and restrictions on mail-in ballots. Trump is attempting to game the process to avoid including components of the SAVE Act in the DHS funding package.

He acknowledged that this order will be subjected to legal challenges, as the president has no explicit Constitutional authority over elections. And the administration of elections is almost solely governed by individual state laws.

And just today, Johnson and Thune agreed that the House would accept the Senate’s version of the DHS bill, without providing funding for immigration enforcement. This constitutes a defeat for the Speaker after Trump signaled his approval of the compromise.

ICE and the other immigration enforcement units in DHS will continue to be funded by money appropriated in the president’s reconciliation bill that Congress passed last summer. It also does not include the restrictions that Democrats are insisting on before they fund future ICE activities.

So, Where Does That Leave Us

To fund the remaining portion of the DHS budget, Johnson and Thune will work to package another reconciliation bill that includes that funding. This is an attempt to circumvent any potential Democratic filibuster. Trump has stated that he wants the legislation, which includes additional funding for his war with Iran and possibly components of the SAVE Act, on his desk to sign by June 1.

This will be a tall order, given the bipartisan disagreements over all parts of this package. Because of this, many Democrats are skeptical that Little Mikey Johnson and the other Republicans could successfully push through legislation that is so controversial within GOP ranks.