Durbin says he has been working with leadership and the appropriations committee on averting sequestration, calling the cuts “mindless,” but he was noncommittal about the details.

Sequestration is “going to happen,” Durbin says. “That’s the alternative if you don’t have House support for changing it. During the fiscal cliff debate, I thought there was sentiment, strong sentiment among some Republican senators, when it came to [avoiding] the defense sequestration. I found theirs was a minority viewpoint. Most of the Republican senators I spoke to said we’re for spending cuts, we want sequestration to go forward. So if there’s that sentiment on the Republican side in the Senate and among House Republicans, I think we’re committed to some form of sequestration spending cut.”