Patty Murray: “we are nearly done with our fiscal year 2026 spending bills. It has been a long road--no question--and we still have…”

“we are nearly done with our fiscal year 2026 spending bills. It has been a long road--no question--and we still have some serious disagreements around reforms and funding for ICE and Border Patrol, which I will speak to in a minute, but despite the major challenges, we accomplished something important in passing 11 and, hopefully soon, 12 of our funding bills. We outright rejected Trump's plan to gut the programs families rely on. We protected crucial investments that people count on every day, and we took some important steps to reassert Congress' power of the purse. That matters immensely. We would almost be there on the Homeland appropriations bill if it were not for Speaker Johnson. Despite the Senate unanimously passing a bill--twice, in fact--to fund the parts of DHS we can agree on while continuing to work on the areas of disagreement when it comes to ICE and Border Patrol, Speaker Johnson and the House Republicans have refused to put the bill up for a vote. They have chosen to needlessly extend the DHS shutdown, making it the longest shutdown in history. House Republicans need to stop holding disaster relief hostage and put that bill up for a vote. We know it will pass overwhelmingly.”