Democrats Say You Can’t Add Riders to a DHS Funding BIll — But They Already Supported Riders on This One

One of the prevailing assumptions of Congress’s current debate over the DHS funding bill is a contrast between Democrats, who want a “clean” funding bill free of all riders, and Republicans, who insist upon a rider that would block a number of the president’s directives on immigration policy. Over and over, Democrats insist upon a “clean” funding bill scrubbed of riders.

But, it turns out, Democrats have no problem attaching riders to important government funding bills — including this one.

The preferred Democratic alternative to the House DHS plan is a funding bill proposed by Senate Democrats Barbara Mikulski, vice-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of Appropriations’s DHS subcommittee. This bill omits the rider defunding the president’s immigration executive actions, but it includes many other riders. In fact, it’s full of conditions for DHS funding: making some funds for agencies dependent upon the submission of various reports, requiring that government officials be subject to baggage screening, placing limits on the number of TSA agents who can be hired with funds, and so forth.

Moreover, this funding bill specifically refuses funding for various enterprises. For instance, Section 512 says that no funds can be used to change the oath of allegiance. Section 522 says that no funds can be used by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to grant an “immigration benefit” to an individual unless that individual has gone through a background check. Section 529 prohibits any funds from being used to develop a national ID card.

Section 533 says that no funds can be used to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any non-citizen held at Guantanamo Bay to the United States. 

This rider is particularly striking because, in the past, the Obama administration has sought to transfer Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil. The administration even tried to set up a trial for KSM in New York City (it has since backed away from that decision).

In other words, despite their attacks on Republicans, Senate Democrats are also quite willing to risk “holding hostage” DHS funding by refusing to fund certain presidential initiatives. On the transfer of Guantanamo detainees, Senate Democrats are quite willing to stand up to the president. (This standing up has been successful: President Obama has repeatedly chafed at prohibitions on transferring Guantanamo detainees, lamenting them as recently as December 2014, but he nevertheless signs budgets that include these prohibitions.)

So when congressional Democrats complain about riders to DHS, they don’t mean riders in general: They mean a specific rider that goes after a piece of executive overreach they liked.