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Posted on 11/19/2014 10:25:39 AM PST by Red Steel
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has long been the conservative movement's voice in the lawless wilderness that is our nation's immigration system.
"What Jeff Sessions is doing is what the Republican Party at large should be doing," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said last summer, days after saying "God bless him" for the senator's work to secure our nation's borders.
In 2006, Sessions spoke against the Republican-backed bill that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens before securing the border they so easily crossed. He then spent the next few years trying to get our federal government to enforce existing immigration laws.
In 2013, Sessions spoke against the Democrat-backed bill that would have also granted amnesty before securing the border, and in the process became, as the National Journal put it, "the loudest voice in Washington opposing President Obama's immigration policies." The friendly yet resolute senator has been successful despite being in an era when Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stripped the minority of their long-held procedural rights. In short, Sessions won even when he held no power.
In 2015, everything will change when Republicans take control of the Senate and Sessions becomes chairman of the powerful Senate Budget Committee and a senior member of the majority controlling the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions will no longer be a voice in the political wilderness. He'll be a man with a plan to stop President Barack Obama's planned executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Last week Sessions appeared on Fox News and said that Congress could "bar any expenditure of money to carry out such an executive amnesty." It will be "very expensive" just to produce the identification cards needed for the plan, he explained. Such costs could be targeted by legislation and then prohibited. With no money to implement the massive program, any executive order would simply be a piece of paper.
In a standoff between the White House and Congress many conservatives believe the Republicans will blink. They always do, but Sessions is different. I don't believe he'll bend or break on the issue. He understands what is at risk, both democratically and constitutionally.
"President Obama will be exercising powers properly belonging to Congress if he makes good on his threat," Sessions wrote in a letter to Reid last week urging the lame duck session of the Senate to act out of its own institutional interests. He warned that executive amnesty would be "lawless" and set off a "constitutional crisis."
He's right. What if every other president who knocked heads with Congress decided to create laws by himself? Where would our republic be? Who knows, but it wouldn't be a republic.
Supporters of executive amnesty claim that the dictatorial-like move is justified because Congress is intractable on the issue. But where in our constitutional does it say that the president is allowed to make laws by himself if Congress is being hardheaded? It doesn't. If the executive and legislative branches disagree, our government is designed so that it's nearly impossible for one side to prevail. Only the Congress, interestingly enough, is allowed to both write and enact a law through a super majority vote. The president, as a single person, should be powerless to act alone except during an extreme crisis, and even then it's only temporary.
Democratically, the message sent from voters last week is clear: we want the border secured before anyone is granted status.
"Republicans in the House and Senate campaigned against the Obama-Senate immigration bill and on the pledge to block President Obama's unlawful executive amnesty," Sessions said. "The immediate emergency facing our new majority will be fighting the President's disastrous planned actions, and we will have not only a Constitutional mandate but also a popular mandate to do so."
Thankfully, with senators like Sessions now in power and leading the charge, the Republicans in Congress will indeed fight back.
Heard that. I’m spitting blood I’m so mad!
Using border security as a quid pro quo to secure amnesty is cynical even for this most cynical of presidents. Border security is a major duty of the President, and is part of the role he accepted when he took his oath of office.
Not policing the border because you want millions of illegals to get amnesty (and become reliable democrat voters for generations) is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind a couple of centuries ago. It reeks of the type of small town corruption wherein a sheriff might say, “I won’t arrest any criminals unless the town council allows my brother-in-law to build that new shopping center on public land.”
BUMP
Here’s What House GOP Could Do When Obama Issues His Immigration Order
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/here-s-what-house-gop-could-do-when-obama-issues-his-immigration-order-20141116
Excerpt:
If Obama announces his executive order next Friday at noon, the House could stay in session for as long as needed rather than beginning the planned Thanksgiving recess. The chamber could pass a resolution rejecting the president’s actions. Then House Republicans would focus on appropriations.
The current funding bill is set to sunset Dec. 11, and lawmakers are jockeying over passing another short-term continuing resolution or a longer-term package. The House could attach a rider prohibiting enforcement of Obama’s order, or it could not provide money to departments that would respond to executive action.
This strategy aligns with a letter that Salmon, along with at least 62 cosigners, sent House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers and ranking member Nita Lowey. It urges them to insert language into any spending bill prohibiting the use of appropriated money for executive action that would create additional work permits or green cards. Essentially, Congress’s power of the purse would be Obama’s punishment.
Third party time! Get it up and running by January 2016. Republicans will be gone one way or another soon enough, after the illegals start voting.
Lets see out of 54 R voting senators the GOP-e will need...
Don’t know what the tie breaking procedures are, but the Chamber of Farce would need 28 Rs voting for someone else.
We can assume who they likely will be. I’ll start.
McConnell
McCain
Graham
Rubio
Corker(TN weak sister)
Alexander (other TN weak sister)
Cochran (puppet)
Flake
Enzi
There’s 8. They need 20 more to vote for Enzi...
So what? Obama would just declare some emergency and accounting gimmick and spend the money anyway.
Obama delenda est.
Thanks for the info.
According to Heritage Action Scorecard, Cornyn is more conservative than Enzi.
Rush said today that Mitch is trying to back door Enzi into Sessions’ rightful chairmanship. If true that leaves little doubt what the GOPe has planned for us dummies that put them in power.
Some other possible GOP/GOPe traitorous senators:
Susan Collins
Lisa Murkowski
Mark Kirk
Johnny Isakson
Rob Portman
Orrin Hatch
Rand Paul
Enzi to challenge Sessions for Senate Budget chairmanship
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3228812/posts
Bttt
Bttt
But if Mike Enzi has his was Sessions will be a man without a committee chairmanship.
I believe it's the members of the committee who vote for chairman, not members of the entire caucus. The Republican members right now are Enzi, Sessions, Grassley, Ayotte, Crapo, Graham, Portman, Toomey, Johnson and Wicker. Becoming the majority will add two Republicans to the committee. Republicans chosen by McConnell. If Sessions is serious about shutting down the government with additions to the budget then I don't see McConnell letting him chair the committee. There are already 7 or 8 votes against him. McConnell will add two more.
It worse than I thought. It’s going to take less votes to remove Sessions.
From linked article. “Although seniority can govern committee chairmanships in the Senate, any member — junior or not — can challenge for the gavel. Such campaigns are decided by the Republican members of the committee, only. “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3228812/posts
Yes, just saw that.
Then I think we can agree that pigs will fly before the GOP establishment lets Sessions be committee chair.
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