(Fox News) - Conservative Republicans are pushing back
hard against House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to effectively push off the
battle over President Obama’s immigration plan to next year in order to pass a
spending bill, increasing the likelihood he’ll need help from Democrats to get
it through the House and Senate.
The speaker on Tuesday had put forward a plan to address two
tricky issues: letting Republicans vent over the president’s controversial
immigration executive actions, while also backing a spending bill to keep the
government running past Dec. 11, when current funding runs out.
Boehner’s solution is to call a vote on a bill this week
opposing and trying to block Obama’s immigration orders — though it would
likely die in the Senate. Then, the House would vote next week on a bill
funding the government through the full fiscal year, and funding
immigration-related agencies through early next year. This would kick the fight
over the president’s immigration plan to 2015, when Republicans have control of
both chambers.
But that’s not enough for many conservatives, who want to
use the current spending fight as leverage to defund the president’s plan now.
They complain that the planned vote this week would merely be symbolic.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., blasted Boehner’s proposal in a
statement late Tuesday, suggesting it violates a campaign promise by
Republicans to do “everything” they can to stop executive “amnesty.”
“Unfortunately, the plan now being circulated in the House
fails to meet that test,” Sessions said.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said “sending a bill to the Senate
without first making an attempt to include defund language is telling the
American people that you support Obama’s executive amnesty. That would be a
slap in the face to the voters who sent a message last month by electing
Republican majorities in Congress.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Wednesday urged GOP colleagues to
“do what you said you would do” to battle the “amnesty.”
Boehner is likewise facing some pushback from conservative
members of the House GOP caucus. This increases the likelihood that he’ll need
help from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic rank-and-file.
Such an alliance would not be unprecedented. Boehner
routinely has turned to Democrats to pass major pieces of legislation when he
couldn’t bring his full caucus on board, including to avert a partial
government shutdown. As it stands now, Republicans can only lose 18 of their
own before having to turn to Democrats to prevent a partial shutdown.
Pelosi has not definitively said what she might do with the
current package.
And on the Senate side, Democratic Leader Harry Reid on
Tuesday would not rule out accepting the House GOP spending proposal, though
Democrats would rather see a spending bill that funds the government in its
entirety through the end of the fiscal year.
Reid called the Republican effort to only fund the
Department of Homeland Security through March “a shame.” But the Nevada
Democrat didn’t completely torch the House Republican maneuver.
Republican sources indicated there may be some “softness” in
GOP ranks for the Boehner plan, but GOP aides noted that over the past four
years, the Republican Conference has traditionally lost 30-50 members on its
side when it comes to voting on big legislative initiatives. “This is just what
we always go through,” lamented one senior aide familiar with previous
vote-counting efforts.
Boehner and his allies are touting the working plan as the
best course of action, with the understanding that they would resume the fight
next year over Obama’s plan to grant temporary legal status to up to 5 million
illegal immigrants.
Boehner said Tuesday that Obama has ignored the American
people.
“This is a serious breach of our Constitution,” Boehner
said.
He also said lawmakers “have limited options and abilities
to deal with it directly.”
Source:http://www.teaparty.org/sessions-house-gop-verge-breaking-campaign-promises-70560/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/03/boehner-faces-conservative-pushback-over-plan-to-delay-immigration-fight/
No comments:
Post a Comment