Posted on 01/16/2015 11:21:58 AM PST by Jim Robinson
HERSHEY, PA. — Senate GOP leaders are using their joint retreat with the House to warn conservatives that they’re not going to be able to reverse President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told House lawmakers that he needs at least six Democrats to pass legislation approved by the House that funds the Homeland Security Department and repeals Obama’s actions deferring deportation for millions of illegal immigrants.
He told House Republicans not to expect miracles, since it would take 60 Senate votes to send the House bill to Obama’s desk, and McConnell only has 54 Republican votes. “You look at the hand you’re dealt. There are not 60 Republicans, so you have to convince six Democrats to move with them,” said one border-state Republican congressman. “Pigs will fly out of my rear end before that happens.”
It’s also far from clear that all 54 Republican senators would support the House bill, which would also undo Obama’s 2012 order that gives legal status to certain people who entered the U.S. illegally as children.
Twenty-six House Republicans voted against that portion of the bill on Wednesday.
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters on Thursday that the bill could be changed by amendment in the Senate.
Cornyn’s comments also sent the signal that GOP conservatives in the House need to lower their expectations.
Without a deal, the Homeland Security Department could shutdown after Feb. 27, when its existing funding runs out.
That’s something Republicans in both chambers want to avoid, and the messages from Cornyn and McConnell are sinking in, the border-state congressman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The United States is dangerously close to being a de facto single party nation.
the tea party needs to break with the republican party and become it’s own party
It’s about time the legal citizens of this country got some real representation
When are the leading conservatives in the GOP going to realize that its time to walk away and form a new party?
They don’t have much choice but to let Obama have whatever he wants. It was just a pipe dream to believe anything will change with Repubs not having enough votes without democrats helping them. Not likely to happen.
The GOP now has a majority of both houses of Congress and still can’t do anything?? Yet the Democrats only have one branch and can do anything they want.... the difference is that the GOP doesn’t WANT to do anything.
Didn’t take ole Bitchy long to reach into the excuse box did it.
We don’t have the votes....elect more of us RINOS so we can punch more of you in the nose and steal you blind.
FUMM and the Chamber of Cronies you pray to.
Why should one expect miracles from a bunch of crooks ?
You may be exactly right but still takes 60 votes in the Senate to over ride Obama’s veto. Unfortunately that number and McConnell leading the Repubs in the Senate, Obama is in pretty safe territory. We need either a different President or a bigger majority in the Senate.
The TEA Party needs a Purge of the GOP people leading it first.
Yes they do. Facts show clearly and without any honest way to argue against, that they want to further Obama’s goals.
People who empower the GOP are as evil as those they empower.
Obama has no power the GOP does not give him. They could have stopped him long ago with funding. They did not. REPEATEDLY.
Nothing else matters.
Nah he looks more like the Cadbury Chocolates Easter Rabbit commercial. The one with the rabbit that clucks like a chicken LOL.
Let’s set the table first. Alexander Bolton at The Hill is a lying, left-wing, castrated, purse-carrying, America-hating neo-Nazi wimp.
Correct...if this were the actual budget vs. a mere “funding” bill...the way this place has been operating is completely screwed up.
Of course the media isn’t helping by phrasing everything in terms of “immigration” vs. illegal activity on the part of the President to implement new policies. Not deporting could be stretched to say it is “discretion”, but giving work permits is not “prosecutorial discretion” it is implementing completely new law to supersede the statutes.
67 to override the veto, 60 to move the bill forward to get it to his desk. Having a different President would not make things move through the Senate to get to his desk, and getting the 60 seat threshold is not likely.
What McConnell is saying is completely true re: 60 votes. It is reality, and a very sad reality, that not even 6 Democrats would be willing to stand up for their own branch of government’s authority. However, making these comments to start off publicly only emboldens the other side and discourages our side, and of course gives the impression they’ll just expect it without trying to change the reality so they can just “move on” from this and not be bothered. That is the problem.
Unfortunately, the fact Obama was elected not once, but twice, does matter, regardless of how effective or ineffective the GOP in Congress is...
And declaring that he is not going to enforce the law for millions of illegals is a defacto repeal of the law, which only Congress can do.
I agree
If the GOP doesn’t even bother to attempt conservatism (or even voice it), they are dead to millions and millions of voters.
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