Republicans are struggling to find a way to prevent an unnecessary shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security in one month.
The party faces a familiar dilemma: spark a crisis or infuriate its conservative base, which is demanding that Congress use the power of the purse to block President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
It’s the first big test for the new Republican-led Congress.
On Tuesday, a unified Senate Democratic caucus sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) demanding a “clean” DHS funding bill — a signal that they’ll filibuster House-passed legislation that attaches homeland security funding to a provision scrapping Obama’s authority to temporarily protect unlawful immigrants.
“The House bill cannot pass the Senate,” the senators wrote.
On Wednesday, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced clean DHS funding legislation through fiscal year 2015, increasing the pressure on McConnell to consider it.
McConnell told reporters Tuesday that the Senate will bring up the House-approved DHS bill “as soon as it finishes” pending legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He wouldn’t suggest a backup plan if the bill fails in the chamber.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted McConnell’s announcement.
“Let’s be clear,” he said. “Senator McConnell is putting our national security at risk because he is too timid to stand up to the right-wing extremists in his caucus.”
Even if the bill passes the Senate, the White House has threatened to veto it, along with any other legislation that targets Obama’s unilateral actions announced in November to protect nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and let them apply for three-year work permits.
Speaker John Boehner, looking for an escape route, floated the possibility of the House authorizing a lawsuit against the president’s immigration actions inside a Republican conference meeting on Tuesday. Like the House-approved action last year to sue Obama over Obamacare implementation, the move appears aimed at finding an alternate outlet for conservative anger.
The predicament was created by the House GOP’s decision in December to fund most of the government through September 2015 but keep DHS on a short leash, keeping the immigration-enforcing agency open only through February. The aim was to placate conservatives angry about Obama’s executive actions.
On Dec. 11, Boehner said the House DHS bill sets up the new Republican Congress to “make a direct challenge to the president’s unilateral actions on immigration.” He promised to “take this fight to the president on the strongest possible ground – with new majorities that the American people elected.”
Boehner also promised that the House’s fight would include border security reform. But Republican leaders are struggling to secure support for border security legislation led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) — they indefinitely delayed a vote on it scheduled for Monday. That further complicates Boehner’s task if his party lacks a Plan B to confront Obama.
Pure amateur hour from the Republican “leadership.”
“Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Disgusting.
Actually, what Boner is scared of is THIS happening to the GOP around the 1:42 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XuPHlX0Di4Josh, could you please post the ‘Republican females’ bit from Raw Story where Gomer (AKA Captain Asparagus) is whining that he never said what he said? It’s classic Teabaggery.
Time’s ticking out pretty quickly on those “new majorities”.
McConnell’s got big problems in holding together a Senate majority that includes FIFTEEN caucus member who face re-election scenarios in 2016 that range from the not-easy to the close-to-impossible. It’s easily possible that a third or more of them will lose, and every step taken towards pandering to the base is a step also towards ensuring that. The SAFEST route for those most vulnerable to being defeated in 2016 are to appear busy with a lot of symbolic bills and pyrrhic victories, and even those are going to prove difficult.
The same scenario applies to some extent in the House, where well over 60 of Boehner’s majority represent districts that support policy sets on difficult issues that on the whole are more liberal progressive than their Congressional reps.
And then there’s the combined problem of the way the Republicans run the chamber’s business dockets on the one hand, with facing a Democratic president released of the need to run for re-election while armed with a veto and an array of clearly identified legislation and policy goals to protect.
This current session isn’t going anywhere until the fall, mostly having to retrench members’ perceived need to vote for symbolic bills. Then from mid-September thru to maybe May at the latest, the big focus is going to be on the budget and how the government keeps open while Congress shuts down for the long election push - and much of THAT time will be taken up with the public focus on the Clown Cavalcade and candidates need to force attention on themselves.
The last several Congresses have been to getting things done like the last 15 years in the global climate have been to historically warming temperatures. This one could easily end up being setting an even higher bar for Doing Nothingness.
This?