WASHINGTON — The white flag went up on Tuesday afternoon, when House Republican leaders backed down and funded the Department of Homeland Security without the restrictive immigration provisions they had demanded.
The vote was 257-167. Most Republicans voted against it, but Democrats carried it to victory.
The bill passed the Senate last week, and now goes to President Barack Obama who is expected to sign it.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) fought alongside conservatives for legislation that would erase Obama’s executive actions on immigration dating back to 2011. But it failed to break a Senate filibuster and faced veto threats from Obama. Seeing no path to victory, Boehner told his members Tuesday morning that it was time to give up the fight.
Some conservatives weren’t pleased, and tried to delay the vote by ordering a full reading of the clean DHS legislation.
“I’m very worried because we have a president that’s completely out of control. He’s very comfortable with violating the law and the Constitution,” Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) told reporters. “And if we don’t have a Senate and a House willing to stand up to him … we need to get ready to start defeating some of these things and get serious about it.”
But Fleming said conservative House members wouldn’t try to oust Boehner, despite speculation to the contrary.
“There’s no plan, no discussion about removing the Speaker,” he said.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, strongly criticized conservatives in his own party for “empty posturing” on immigration.
“I prefer to be in the arena voting than trying to placate a small group of phony conservative Members who have no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness,” Nunes said. “While conservative leaders are trying to move the ball up the field, these other Members sit in exotic places like basements of Mexican restaurants and upper levels of House office buildings, seemingly unaware that they can’t advance conservatism by playing fantasy football with their voting cards.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told TPM that a “clean” DHS bill was the most responsible move to make, “because I don’t think anyone has an alternative, other than shutting down DHS, which doesn’t repeal the executive order.”
“To get it into law it takes the Senate and the White House and the Senate couldn’t muster the 60 votes to get it done,” Walden said in an interview. “We have to be realistic about what they’re capable of doing under their rules, and not over-promise and then not be able to deliver.”
