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Two years ago, Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama accepted what is often called the worst assignment in politics — rebutting the president's State of the Union address.

The televised response, broadcast live from Britt's tidy kitchen in Montgomery, was the Alabama freshman's introduction to a national audience, and what many viewers saw was an over-the-top firebrand, parodied as a "scary mom" by actress Scarlett Johansson on Saturday Night Live.

"The American dream has turned into a nightmare for so many families," Britt said in the speech.

Standing in as her party's pick to rebut the president, ahead of his reelection bid no less, is a daunting task for any up-and-coming politician, but even some Republicans described Britt's performance with words like baffling and bizarre.

Colleagues say this initial caricature of Britt as a hyper-partisan MAGA mom is simply untrue. In the Senate, Britt has been building a different reputation — as a bipartisan dealmaker.

Now Britt is helping negotiate changes to how immigration agents operate after the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as Democrats refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security without reforms. The department has now been shut down for more than 10 days.

And at a time of deep polarization, this moment is testing how far Britt, and other lawmakers, are willing to go to tackle knotty policy problems captivating national attention.

A front row seat

Veteran Alabama political columnist Steve Flowers first met Britt when she was a teenager attending a prestigious girls leadership program. Flowers was so impressed, he called up his old friend, Alabama's long-serving Republican senator, Richard Shelby.

"And I said, 'Shelby, I just met a young woman who's got U.S. Senator or governor written all over her."

Britt went to work on Capitol Hill for Shelby, who for years was the top Republican on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, a group so bipartisan in nature that Hill veterans are known to joke about three categories of lawmakers — Republicans, Democrats and appropriators.

Shelby taught young aides that your word is your bond and making deals across the aisle hinges on trust, and often, genuine friendship. Shelby and his counterpart on the committee, former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were like brothers, Flowers said.

"Quite frankly, it's the ingredient that is necessary for any of that to come together," says Dayne Cutrell, a former Shelby staffer who overlapped with Britt. "Not only does she see it because of who she is, but she had a front row seat to somebody that was able to do it for years to the benefit of the state."

Cutrell remembers when Britt eventually became Shelby's chief of staff, she made a point of meeting with all 99 other Senate chiefs. "And not only did she do it, she did it in like two weeks," Cutrell said.

When Shelby retired after 2022, Britt, at 40 years old, became the youngest Republican woman elected to the Senate. In her Capitol Hill office, Britt displays a gold-framed handbill from Shelby's first campaign for the Alabama Senate in 1970. Her desk was once Shelby's – and before that, Lyndon B. Johnson's.

"Now that she is a member, she is the same person that wants to know not just you as an individual, but your family and what makes you tick and why it's important," Cutrell said.

"Anybody can go sit in a corner"

That's in part why Britt was able to help bring Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., onto a deal to end the record-long government shutdown last fall, despite deep opposition from others in his party. The pair already had a relationship from drafting legislation on affordable child care.

"I was testing ideas with her, and when it looked like things might break down, [she would say] 'Hey come on let's keep talking.' We may disagree, but I'll get a read on where's the caucus, where's the White House likely to be on this, and that's helpful," Kaine said.

At a time when compromise seems to have little political upside, why wade in? Britt says that is what her constituents sent her to Washington to do.

"Anybody can go sit in a corner," Britt said in an interview. "Two-year-olds do it best, and we have a lot of people that are taking their ball and sitting in the corner. And I just think it's too critical of a moment in our country's history to do that."

A delicate balance 

For many members, the latest inflection point in the country was the Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

For Britt, it was the viral image of a five-year-old boy in a bunny hat and Spiderman backpack being detained by federal officers there that she could not shake — so much so that she raised questions about the incident with the administration.

There were reports that federal officers were using the boy to lure other potential targets for arrest. Britt's office scheduled a call with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, first reported by The New York Times. Britt said Noem assured her that was not true.

And Britt has refrained from mentioning the boy in her public remarks, instead focusing on criticizing Democrats for refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security amid negotiations.

"I'm over it," Britt told her colleagues recently on the floor. "Everybody on that side of the aisle knows that ICE and CBP will continue to be funded. They're going to continue to enforce the law just as they should. Who's going to pay the price? It's the TSA agent, it's the person working at FEMA."

That message has frustrated Democratic negotiators who were already irked when Britt called their demands a "ridiculous Christmas list."

"My wish is for my Republican colleagues to be just as upset as they are about what is going to happen at TSA or FEMA as for the children that are being traumatized right now," responded Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Britt's counterpart on the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

Murphy and Britt worked together to negotiate the homeland security funding bill that was set to pass with bipartisan support before the deadly shootings in Minneapolis.

Senate Republicans have signaled that much of the back and forth so far has been directly between Democrats and the White House — and there have been few signs of progress in recent days.

Democrats and Republicans say Britt's appeal as an emerging mediator comes not only from trust she has built across the aisle, but also with her party's leadership in the Senate and the White House.

Maintaining all three is a delicate balance.

In 2025 Britt voted in line with President Trump 100% of the time on legislation he took a position on, according to Congressional Quarterly.

But she was one of a few Republicans to criticize a racist video posted on President Trump's social media, which depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Britt said the video "should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation."

Trump saw the critical comment as disloyalty, according to CNN, a report Britt's office called "fake news."

Ideologues and facilitators 

Flowers, the Alabama columnist, sees two types of senators: idealogues: "You may have one who will be a Fox News-chasing publicity hound who wants to be known as a right-wing fire eater," he said.

And facilitators, like Shelby. "That's what Katie's role will be: bring home the bacon, get things done for Alabama, as well as voting conservative," Flowers said.

Flowers says it is not as easy to be a facilitator as it was in Shelby's day. He said he hopes Britt won't be pulled away from her approach as she steps further onto the national stage.

"I think it is harder now to do that, but maybe she can balance it," Flowers said. "She doesn't owe Trump anything. She'll be there long after Trump's gone."

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/27/in-a-polarized-capitol-katie-britt-works-to-play-dealmaker/