GOP Meltdown: Republicans Battle Each Other On Immigration, Homeland Security Funding
WASHINGTON -- This was the fight Republicans wanted. They laid the plans in December: Withhold funding for the Department of Homeland Security and then, using the DHS budget as leverage, force President Barack Obama to reverse his immigration executive orders.
What Republicans didnt plan on was having a battle among themselves instead of with the White House.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would keep Homeland Security funded beyond the Feb. 27 deadline while also undoing all the president's immigration rulings, including giving legal status to so-called Dreamers. But, after three tries,Senate Democrats have held on to a filibuster and blocked the bill.
Now the GOP cant seem to find or agree on an endgame.Conservatives remain determined to undo the immigration orders, period. But cutting off funding for the department tasked with protecting the U.S. from terrorism would be politically dicey at any time and particularly hard to defend at a moment when Islamic State group militants are willing to burn anti-ISIS coalition captives alive.
In truth, the debate over DHS funding is more about optics than anything operational. The department wont actually close its doors and go home to wait for Congress to pass a funding bill -- or for terrorists to strike. Most of its functions are considered essential: Employees will still have to report to work. But they will have to wait until Congress restores their funding to get their paychecks. It would take a long-term stalemate to start causing real problems in areas such as hiring and purchasing equipment.
Both chambers of Congress headed home Thursday without a resolution.And with a brief recess scheduled for the week of Presidents Day, Congress has only eight working days left before DHS funding runs out.
Asked Thursday whether he knows what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might do, House Speaker John Boehner was straightforward. No, he said, drawing laughter from the press.Listen, hes got a tough job over there. Ive got a tough job over here. God bless him and good luck, Boehner said, drawing more laughter from the reporters. What else can you say?
And as much as Republicans will insist the next few weeks that the tough job is standing up to Democrats, its really about attempting to settle the intra-GOP dispute. A number of Republicans -- including Sens. John McCain, Dean Heller and Susan Collins --appear willing to back away, to fund Homeland Security without tying it to immigration-reform rollbacks. But the partys right wing refuses to give in.
Its a near-repeat of the lead-up to the federal government shutdown in October 2013. House conservatives pushed for a fight with Obama by attaching a defunding of the Affordable Care Act to a spending bill, considered must pass. But the groups pushing for the fight were never able to explain how they would win. And after the bill got bogged down in the Senate, they had no idea what to do next. A 17-day shutdown of the entire government ensued.
This time, Republicans control the Senate. But without 60 votes, it makes little difference.
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GOP Meltdown: Republicans Battle Each Other On Immigration, Homeland Security Funding