New York Times
By Carl Huse
July 1, 2014
With
immigration legislation dead for the year, Congress has a very short
must-do list as relations between the two parties, already miserable,
seem to be getting worse
in the buildup to the midterm elections.
The
effort to revive the appropriations process is teetering. House
Republicans are preparing a lawsuit challenging the power of the
president, who denounces that move
as a stunt. A special Republican-created House panel on the attacks in
Benghazi, Libya, will hold hearings this fall. The positions of both
parties are hardening.
As
a result, minimal expectations for achievement in the final months of
the 113th Congress — and at the midpoint of President Obama’s second
term — are sinking lower,
if that is possible.
Failure
to act in a few crucial cases could imperil the fragile economic
recovery. If Congress cannot reach agreement on spending bills or
stopgap funding by Oct. 1, another
government shutdown could result. And if Congress and the White House
do not quickly find money for the depleted Highway Trust Fund, states
could be forced to suspend job-providing road and bridge projects at the
height of the construction season in August.
Top
Democratic and Republican officials expect that Congress will avert
both potential crises, though not without the usual partisan
brinkmanship. Republicans do not want
to be seen as causing another unpopular government shutdown a month
before an election they believe is trending their way, and neither party
wants to see workers idled from good-paying jobs on community
construction projects.
While
the House and Senate may find a way to keep road construction going and
federal agencies open, what they do beyond that is an open question.
Legislation on veterans’
health care, human trafficking and terrorism insurance are on a
scaled-back set of achievable priorities, along with an administration
request for more border funding.
But the collapse of immigration legislation has left a very big hole.
With
any thought of a grand fiscal bargain in the distant past, the
possibility of compromise on a sweeping immigration policy was the last,
best hope for a big accomplishment
this year — a potentially legacy-burnishing success for both Mr. Obama
and Speaker John A. Boehner.
A
visibly frustrated president on Monday disclosed that Mr. Boehner, who
was at the White House last week to recognize professional golfers, had
said definitively that
he would not put any immigration legislation on the floor. That
disappointed advocates who had held out hope that House Republicans
might be willing to act after the threat of primary challenges had
diminished.
The
immigration stalemate set off an unusually harsh exchange of words,
with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, saying Mr.
Boehner’s “failure of leadership
is enormous.” Mr. Boehner, for his part, said the president was guilty
of “giving false hope to children and their families that if they enter
the country illegally, they will be allowed to stay.”
Mr.
Obama, in some of his sharpest comments about congressional
Republicans, said they could head off the type of executive action they
abhor by cooperating on an immigration
approach with broad support.
“I
take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious
issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing,” he said. “And in this
situation, the failure of House
Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for
our economy and it’s bad for our future.”
Midterm
elections and deep partisanship have not always been obstacles to
legislative progress, with members of Congress mindful of the need to
score a few legislative
victories so they can have something to trumpet to voters back home.
For
example, as Republicans tried in 2006 to maintain their majorities —
unsuccessfully, as it turned out — they produced a last-minute string of
security-related bills
on border fencing and port safeguards after enacting a highway bill and
an energy measure. However, a major push on immigration legislation
came up short that year as well.
Given
the dearth of legislation, the best chance for lawmakers to influence
policy was probably through the 12 appropriations bills Congress
struggled to pass in recent
years. The effort was getting a strong push this year, with the House
making steady progress. But the drive was derailed in the Senate by a
fight over amendments and the threshold for approving them.
Though
Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland and chairwoman of the
Appropriations Committee, wants to move forward, it appears unlikely
that Mr. Reid will
accept a demand by Senate Republicans for a host of amendment votes.
This puts the spending bills in limbo and Congress on track to once
again approve a stopgap funding bill, at least until after the
elections.
As
for the Highway Trust Fund, top officials say Representative Dave Camp,
Republican of Michigan and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
has been working on a series
of tax changes to provide money into next year, and Senate Democratic
leaders have shown some interest.
Despite
the inertia, lawmakers have proved that they can get some things done
when it serves them. The National Journal reported on Monday that
Republican and Democratic
members of the House Ethics Committee quietly came together to agree
that lawmakers do not have to report free trips they take on their
personal financial disclosure forms.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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