WASHINGTON/January 02, 2018(AP)(STL.News) — There will be two fresh Senate faces and plenty of familiar but stubborn clashes facing lawmakers as Congress begins its 2018 session Wednesday.

As soon as lawmakers return, they’ll be staring at the year’s first potential calamity: an election-year government shutdown unless there’s a bipartisan spending pact by Jan. 19.

Top White House officials planned to meet at the Capitol Wednesday with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as each chamber’s top Democrat, to discuss the budget.

The spending issue is complicated by demands by Democrats to also protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children.

Parachuting into all this is will be a new Democratic duo in the Senate: Alabama’s Doug Jones and Minnesota’s Tina Smith.

By ALAN FRAM and ANDREW TAYLOR by Associated Press, published on STL.NEWS by St. Louis Media, LLC (US)

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