WASHINGTON ― A bipartisan group of centrist senators met Sunday to work out a potential compromise that would fund the government until Feb. 8, contingent on a promise to hold a vote on an immigration bill before then. In exchange for more Democratic votes to reopen the government, GOP leadership would need to offer some sort of commitment to help the so-called “Dreamers” in coming weeks, according to several senators who attended the meeting in the office of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Capitol Hill. It’s not clear, however, whether enough Democrats would accept a simple verbal commitment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the Senate would consider an immigration bill at some point in the future. He already pledged to do so last month, for example. “There’s been a lot of promises made to different senators that have not been followed through on by the majority leader, so I would be very leery of anything that wasn’t extremely, extremely clear and detailed,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oreg.)

Source: Huffington Post January 21, 2018 23:03 UTC