WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of warring House Republican factions searched for an immigration compromise as some conservatives warned of consequences for Speaker Paul Ryan if he allowed party moderates to push a bipartisan bill through the chamber without strong GOP support.
The talks Monday occurred as centrist Republicans remained five GOP signatures away from being able to force party leaders to hold votes on a series of immigration bills. Should they succeed, it would launch a process in which the likely outcome seemed to be passage of a middle-ground measure backed by a handful of Republicans and all Democrats. Ryan has said he will avert that outcome, though it’s unclear how, and many conservatives consider it intolerable.
Conservative and moderate GOP leaders negotiated privately over ways to win centrist support for a conservative-backed measure that for months has floundered short of the 218 Republican votes it would need for House passage. They discussed changes that would help young “Dreamer” immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and immigrant farm workers stay longer in the U.S., said one lawmaker who described the private discussions on condition of anonymity.
The effort to find GOP unity seemed uphill on an issue that has divided the party for years. But the alternative seemed unpalatable for many Republicans, who fear that the centrists’ effort will force GOP lawmakers to take divisive election-year votes unless leaders figure out how to head them off.
The conservative bill would currently reduce legal immigration, clear the way for construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico and let Dreamers stay in the U.S. for renewable three-year periods. All Democrats oppose the measure and it would have no chance of clearing the more moderate Senate.
Monday’s negotiations came three days after bitter Republican divisions over immigration caused an unrelated farm bill to crash. Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus helped caused the agriculture measure’s defeat after refusing a leadership offer for a vote on the conservative immigration bill in June, which they said was too late.
Some members of the Freedom Caucus suggested it would be time for Ryan to step down should moderates prevail.
Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., said it would cause “a lot more disgruntlement” if the moderates prevail, adding, “People in my district want him to go, now.”
“If we run an amnesty bill out of a Republican House, I think all options are on the table,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the group, when asked if Ryan should remain as speaker if the moderates’ effort succeeds.
Ryan is not seeking re-election to the House but has repeatedly said he will serve the rest of this year as speaker. Many conservatives say legislation protecting immigrants in the U.S. illegally from deportation is amnesty.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the Freedom Caucus leader, said he does not think Ryan should vacate his post if the moderates succeed. But he said House passage of a middle-ground measure would have a “devastating effect” on the GOP because it would “depress anybody who feels like the Republican Party needs to be strong on immigration.”
Other Republicans said it seemed unlikely Ryan would abandon his post. They said others — including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., seen as the likeliest successor — so far lack the GOP votes they’d need to win the job.
Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., a Freedom Caucus member, said Ryan has made good on his word to conservatives not to bring up an immigration bill unless it had support from most Republicans. “We just want him to hold true,” Brat said.
“It’s best for stability” for Ryan to stay, said moderate Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa.
The moderates need 218 signatures — a House majority — on a petition to force votes on immigration bills, a rarely used procedure.
With all 193 Democrats expected to sign, the moderates need five more than the 20 signatures they already have. If they succeed, a vote could occur no earlier than late June.
“The graveyards are full of indispensable men”. Charles DeGaulle
Bye, Paulie
That’s OK, I hear the tRump Criminal Enterprise is still having trouble filling the ambassadorship position to Ireland, which is still vacant after a year and a half. Maybe that’ll be his next job or what he’s really holding out for in the next chapter of his measly life. The only true immigrant story RAyn is willing to embrace in this country are for those that came here due to a potato famine, like those in his own family. All others today, as far as he’s concerned, can eat dirt.
Do the math, willya?
The issue isn’t whether a majority of the Rs can support a bill – that would be 119 of the 236.
What Ryan is confronting is the REAL meaning of the Hastert Rule – he can’t get 218, from within the 236 Rs. So the Rs are categorically rejecting the way House majorities – ACTUAL majorities – have been built since the Founding: with most (but not all) of the partisan majority, plus a few dozen or so of the partisan minority.
We’re not talking about 25 Rs, and all 193 Ds, either. The math would work, but not the politics – and it’s not the way the partisan House majority has ever worked: “If you govern with less than half of your side and nearly all of their side, there is something wrong with your side.”
So we’re really talking about whether the Rs can get more than 119 of their partisan majority to support legislation that gets at least 100 or so of the Ds – half+ one plus half, more or less.
THAT is when it becomes a substantive debate, because what nearly all Ds insist on is that cutting legal immigration in half is unacceptable, even to get green cards for DREAMers. But that’s the price for roughly 60-100 (nobody is sure) of the Rs.
What would happen if Ryan dropped that, and urged his Rs to vote the national interest? Who knows? But it’s happened before.
If you stray from our Fascist ways you will pay.
Where did you get the idea that bipartisan, what the America public wants,is what we want?
The Spineless One got a sad! Poor boy, maybe he needs to spend more time with his family.