Congressional Democrats are unilaterally and unprecedentedly refusing to pass a normal Department of Homeland Security spending bill. So, Republicans are taking an equally partisan approach to ending what’s now the nation’s single longest government shutdown.

With President Donald Trump’s blessing, both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress are moving to fund DHS fully through the rest of his second term. The effort involves a second attempt to use Senate procedures to pass bills with a bare majority of 51 votes, rather than the usual 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. Reconciliation, as it’s known, was last used to enact the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending law.