Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Republicans who joined Democrats’ shutdown filibuster Friday night, offered a plan forward Saturday, saying he wants to see a 20-day funding bill passed along with a guarantee that the Senate will quickly move to debate immigration next month.
The South Carolina Republican had been working the floor during the filibuster vote, trying to win over colleagues to his proposal, and shuttling between GOP and Democratic leaders to keep them up to speed on his deal-making.
In a statement Saturday, he said he hoped he’d been able to bridge the gap.
“After my discussions with numerous senators on both sides of the last night it is clear to me a commitment to move to immigration after February 8th is the key to ending the government shutdown and finding resolution on all the outstanding issues,” he said.
In a dramatic vote late Friday the Senate fell far short of the votes needed to overcome a filibuster and approve a four-week spending bill to keep the government open.
Democrats led the filibuster, heeding the call of illegal-immigrant “Dreamers” who’d insisted no funding could pass unless there was a plan to grant a pathway to citizenship to a large chunk of the illegal immigrant population.
Mr. Graham had been working on such a plan with Sen. Richard Durbin, a senior Democrat, but it was rejected by President Trump.
Though they never released full details, the outline of the Graham-Durbin deal would have offered a generous pathway to citizenship for potentially millions of illegal immigrants in exchange for a 10 percent downpayment on Mr. Trump’s border wall, small adjustments to chain migration, and an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery — though with another new amnesty added to compensate for the loss of the lottery.
After it was clear that deal wasn’t palatable to enough Republicans, Mr. Graham was one of four GOP senators who joined 44 Democrats in backing the shutdown Friday.
On Saturday he said he’s been convinced the shutdown is bad for the military, and he is ready to forgo an immediate immigration deal now, as long as he gets a promise to deal with it in February.
“Military necessity —combined with the reality that DACA recipient lives will soon be turned upside down — provides the incentive for Congress to get it right once and for all,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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