Posted on 11/13/2014 5:26:23 AM PST by maggief
Conservatives in the House and Senate want to stay one step ahead of President Obama, as he readies executive action to allow more illegal immigrants to stay in the country.
Conservatives are calling for a series of short-term bills or continuing resolutions to fund the government, a strategy that would give Republicans more leverage to halt Obama’s policies if and when he decides to go it alone on immigration.
“If the president does something that we really don’t like or approve of, we’re thinking about, how do we defund it? What levers do we have available to us ... to pull to prevent the president from doing that in the first place, or defunding it if he does take that step?” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney in an interview. The South Carolina Republican, who is running for chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said a series of short-term funding measures could prevent Obama from going forward with an executive action on immigration.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who likely will take over as Senate Budget Committee chairman next year, given the GOP takeover of that chamber, said Wednesday he also favored the strategy.
The conservative approach is at odds with both Republican and Democratic appropriators who say they’re focused on passing a lame-duck omnibus package that would keep the government humming along through September 2015.
That would essentially clear the decks of unfinished business, allowing a new Republican-controlled Congress to turn its attention to a fiscal 2016 budget.
“We are moving forward full steam ahead on a 12-bill omnibus, not a [continuing resolution (CR)],” Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), said in an email. “And we are making very good progress,” she said, noting that the trillion-dollar omnibus is on track to hit the floor the week of Dec. 8.
The differences are expected to set off a lively debate when Republicans gather in the Capitol Thursday morning to discuss issues that need resolved in the lame-duck session.
“We obviously have a number of options for combating any unilateral executive amnesty from the White House,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “The Speaker is looking forward to hearing proposals from our members on the best way to proceed.”
With a Senate-passed immigration reform bill stalled in the House, Obama has vowed to act on his own to expand the number of illegal immigrants who would be protected from deportation. That could cover millions of people who conservatives have complained would take jobs from American citizens.
The president threatened to take unilateral action before Election Day, but that effort was delayed, after vulnerable Democrats warned it would hurt them at the polls. Now, Republicans expect him to act on or after Dec. 11, the deadline for Congress to pass a funding bill, to prevent a government shutdown.
Both Mulvaney and Sessions see several ways to block Obama.
Sessions is urging Republicans to include specific language in their nine-month omnibus to bar federal law enforcement officials from spending any money on processing applications, benefits or work permits for illegal immigrants.
If Democrats balk, he argues Republicans should only agree to a short-term funding bill and then include the language in another funding measure after they take over the Senate in January.
Mulvaney said he’s been discussing various immigration options with conservative colleagues in a flurry of phone calls before and after the elections. One idea is to simply pass a series of short-term funding measures, so Republicans could vote to block funding for Obama’s immigration action once he takes that step. Another is to pass a longer-term omnibus for all agencies except the Homeland Security Department, which would carry out the president’s immigration order. Instead, the DHS would be funded on a short-term basis, giving Republicans a chance to exercise its power of the purse.
“There’s no reason not to long-term fund transportation because it doesn’t affect immigration,” Mulvaney said in the interview. “But certainly, we want to know what tools are available to us to undo any damage the president tries to inflict.”
House GOP freshmen arriving on Capitol Hill Wednesday said they were anxious to hear ideas from their colleagues about how Republicans should respond to the president’s immigration decree. But they were unified in their opposition.
“I don’t believe the president should be signing an executive order. If he wants to do that, moving forward, he may look for five, six more things to press even further,” Rep.-elect Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) told The Hill. “The president is elected to serve in his capacity in the executive branch; he is not Congress.”
But top Democrats said Republicans’ failure to act on immigration reform has given Obama no other choice. And Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, dismissed conservatives’ push for yet another short-term CR as foolish.
“We want to provide the economy and the country with some certainty, some predictability and some stability, and that means we should be able to pass a resolution that takes us at least through the remainder of the fiscal year,” Van Hollen said in an interview.
“For goodness sakes, you would think we could deal with this year’s business and get it off the plate.”
I think sitting out there quietly....are at least five Democratic Senators, who would now step over the line and agree to halt the President’s strategy. Maybe, there’s enough to make sixty, and thus put him into a difficult situation. The issue for the Democrats....they’ve been really hurt badly, with barely two years to go. It hurt not only House and Senate Democrats but even down into the lower ranks. Why continue this strategy unless you wanted the Democratic Party destroyed in massive waves in 2016? That’s the only logic left to explain this.
And the press dutifully reports this as if its OK. What if Bush acted unilaterally on Social Security or Medicare reform because the Democrats obstructed him? Or the next Republican president acts unilaterally on a whole host of things because the Dems will obstruct him? Will the press be so compliant?
GOP would be smart to make this about ILLEGALs and NOT impeachment.
I have a better idea. The Senate should say:
If the president moves to augment the power of the Executive Branch in an unprecedented and unconstitutional manner, then the Legislative Branch will need to increase its powers in order to maintain the balance of powers called for in the US Constitution. They will do this in an unprecedented but completely constitutional manner, by providing that the filibuster rule is suspended completely until such time as the president withdraws his executive aggrandizement.
That's where the GOP has leverage. Are the RATs going to go along with Caine at the helm ???
Excellent suggestion - temporary amnesty requires temporary suspension of the rule ...
You didn't give us our way before so now we'll have Obama do it unilaterally and illegally because we don't think you'll impeach him for it...
that's what the Democrats call reaching across the aisle to work with Republicans.
Drudge has an article that claims that 41% of all Obamacare Medicaid sign ups are illegals. 71%of all Obamacare enrollees are Medicaid.
The real damage is the agreement with China.
The people Obama will give amnesty to, aren’t going anywhere regardless of what EO Obama gives. This is simply provocation, because Obama wants a street fight.
These democrats must not have realized they were in the majority from 2009 - 2011.
That should also include Congress passing laws without the president signing the bill. If it is okay for the president to overreach, then it is okay for Congress to overreach. Congress can also say, “We have been patient.”
Yes, and STOP using the word "immigration".
Illegals are people who are in this country illegally whether they be from Canada, El Salvador, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico, Italy, Honduras, China, England, Kenya or wherever.
Immigrants (legal ones)are the ones here legally and cannot vote unless they choose the optional path to citizenship (which many of our ancestors from Italy, Ireland or wherever did not choose while many others may have chosen this path. It has always been option to be a legal immigrant to this nation but not to become a US Citizen.
These illegals are LAWBREAKERS and should not be rewarded with a "path to citizenship" which was never a requirement of legal immigrants and is likely unconstitutional even if this Executive Order for Amnesty was ever even found to be constitutional.
We are sending the wrong message to those foreigners waiting in line in their home country trying to come to this nation legally. It's just WRONG!
Finally, our representatives may have no choice but to impeach the US President for this Executive Order. Politically it may be easier to ignore the US Constitution and ones own principles and just let this slide and blame the results on the political party of this President but that does not make it any more right than what Obama's planning on doing.
Bottom line, if nothing is done about this executive order, the party of the President should not be voted into the White House in 2016 and the Party in control of the upcoming 2015 House and Senate (GOP) should lose control in 2016 for sitting back and doing nothing.
If John Boehner does nothing, then really... what's the difference between he and a Mrs Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
Excellent analogy.
Hey, Obola, who took the strawberries?
Thank you.
Report: 42 percent of new Medicaid signups are immigrants, their children
Many nations in the world have national healthcare. That's all they know. They have not been here long enough to know the American system which has been the driving force in making us Number One in the world. That's why there has always been the rule for legal immigrants that you must live in the USA a period of time (5 years), learn about the country, learn the language and the US Constituion BEFORE taking the oathe and becoming a US Citizen.
There illegals are way too green to become US Citizens and vote. They will be voting solely on what they know based on their home country.
Obamacare's survival and Obama's green Illegals who know nothing else but nationalized healthcare are very connected.
So Obama’s hubris may also kill off the rumored Lame Duck Rino Porkulus II bill. A win-win!
He’s very disturbed-—maybe deranged.
We are all in danger every minute this seething mass of hatred holds onto power.
He was decisively trounced and rejected at midterms.
Now he’s frantic to do something-—anything-—to feed his monumental ego-—to “feel good” about himself.
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