Law360, New York (February 7, 2015, 6:05 PM EST) -- After a week of failed attempts to bring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security funding measure to the floor for consideration, the Senate will return on Monday to continue to seek a path forward on providing DHS with necessary appropriations before the current funding bill expires on Feb. 27. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been attempting to bring the House-passed DHS appropriations bill to the Senate floor for debate but needs 60 votes to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed (in order even to begin debate on the bill itself), which means he needs the support of at least six Democratic senators even to begin deliberations on the bill (and on the last cloture vote he lost a Republican senator). On Thursday, he failed to garner enough votes to end debate on proceeding to the bill for the third time. Senate Democrats are opposed to the measure due to policy riders attached by the House of Representatives to nullify President Obama's recent executive orders on deferred action for immigrants in the country illegally and attendant benefits. Democratic senators have put forward a clean bill, without the policy riders, and have called on Majority Leader McConnell to bring that clean bill up for consideration. Without any Democratic support in the Senate, Republican leadership will need to find an alternative strategy in order to move forward on the bill. Should the Senate pass a clean bill, the measure would go back to the House. With Congress in recess the week of Feb. 16 and current funding for DHS expiring the following week, a short-term or stopgap funding measure is an option until an agreement is worked out. If nothing is done, the lapse in funding would shut down most functions of the Department of Homeland Security....