New York Times
By Ashley Parker
December 2, 2014
House
Republicans made progress on Tuesday steering some of their most
conservative members away from a course that could shut down the
government next week, a prospect that would badly damage
the party as it prepares to take control of Congress in January.
Though
the outcome remained unpredictable, Speaker John A. Boehner and his
deputies were already counting votes for a two-part plan that they
presented in a closed-door meeting in the Capitol.
The
first step would be to allow a largely symbolic vote on legislation to
dismantle President Obama’s executive action last month that delayed the
deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.
The second would be to fund the government through the current fiscal
year, which ends Sept. 30, 2015, except for agencies that spend money to
enforce Mr. Obama’s immigration action, like the Department of Homeland
Security.
Congress
would then revisit funding for those agencies early next year when
Republicans are in control of both the House and the Senate and in a
stronger position.
Republicans
are eager to pass a broad spending bill this year to avoid the crisis
atmosphere that spending fights would create, notably in financial
markets. But they also want to show their
facility for governing, hoping for a triumphant return in January.
As
they left their meeting in the Capitol basement on Tuesday, some
Republicans said there was a growing recognition that the party must
build greater trust with Americans, and that bringing
the country to the brink of another government shutdown would squander
the support voters gave them at the polls last month.
“We’re
three weeks away from having a majority in both houses; we’re going to
have the largest Republican majority in the House in 90 years,” said
Representative Dennis A. Ross, Republican
of Florida. “I think that we have to use this constructively.”
House
Republicans, however, are likely to lose enough conservative members
that they will need at least some Democratic votes to pass their
spending bill. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California,
the Democratic leader, has yet to decide whether to free her members to
support it.
Drew
Hammill, communications director for Ms. Pelosi, said, “We’re not
inclined to support anything that diminishes the president’s legal
authority to act on immigration.”
The
resolution to undo the president’s action, however, would largely be a
way for House Republicans to vent their displeasure, and could come as
early as Thursday. Representative Ted Yoho
of Florida, who came up with the plan, acknowledged that his measure
would be a “symbolic message” if Senate Democrats did not take up his
resolution — something Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the
majority leader, has said he is not going to do.
“The
simplest way this would work is, it will bring a stop to the action
that the president wants,” Mr. Yoho said. “He talks about how he has a
pen and a phone. This will take the ink out
of the pen.”
The
demographics of America’s undocumented immigrants, more than half of
whom have been in the United States for more than 10 years and nearly a
third of whom own homes.
Then,
House Republicans would vote next week on legislation to fund almost
all of the government through September 2015, but use a short-term
measure known as a continuing resolution to fund
the Department of Homeland Security, the agency primarily responsible
for overseeing the administration’s immigration policy, only into March.
Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, first raised the
possibility of the spending plan before the Thanksgiving
break.
Both
Mr. Price and Mr. Yoho come with strong conservative credentials, and
the Republican leadership’s decision to include them in the strategy
helped earn the trust and support of some of
the conference’s more resistant members.
A
complicating factor, however, is that the primary agency responsible
for carrying out the president’s executive action, United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services, is financed entirely
through fees collected from immigration applications and therefore
cannot be defunded in the appropriations process.
Republicans
seemed to acknowledge that there was little they could do to stop the
president. Speaking after the meeting, Mr. Boehner said his conference
seemed to realize that options were
limited until next month.
“I
think they understand that it’s going to be difficult to take
meaningful action as long as we have Democratic control in the Senate,”
he said.
Mr.
Boehner told his members as much in private on Tuesday. “He just asked
that everybody act responsibly,” said Representative John L. Mica of
Florida.
Representative
Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, said that short of going to
court — still an option that Republicans are considering — there was not
much they could do.
“We are not going to shut down the government again,” he said. “There is no doubt we are in a box, in a tough position here.”
The
must-pass spending legislation is the first major test for the speaker
and his new leadership team, who despite increasing their majority in
the House on Election Day still need to show
that they can break the gridlock that has defined Washington for the
past few years — and, more important, keep their most conservative
members in check.
Some
conservatives, however, are likely to vote against the spending bill
because they believe it does not go far enough. They say they would
prefer a measure to fund the entire government
on a short-term basis so that they can pass a spending plan early next
year shaped by Republican majorities.
The
speaker and his allies have been working to ensure that their spending
plan can pass, and he seemed to gain an unlikely ally Tuesday in Mr.
Reid, who called Mr. Boehner’s plan a “big accomplishment”
that Senate Democrats might support.
“The
American people certainly will not want to face another year being
governed by crisis,” Mr. Reid said. “No one wants the kind of
cliffhanger fights we’ve had again and again in recent
years.”
Many
of the more conservative House members have been pushing for an
aggressive response to the president, like a censure vote or cutting off
funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans for the most part on Tuesday said that would not happen.
But
there were still many conservative Republicans who were openly
dismissive of the leadership’s package. “I would vote no because I don’t
think you fund any unconstitutional action, even
if it’s over a short period of time,” said Representative Joe L.
Barton, Republican of Texas.
On
Tuesday, two different House committees held hearings on Mr. Obama’s
executive action, and the strong criticism from some Republicans
highlighted Mr. Boehner’s challenge.
Testifying
before the House Homeland Security Committee, Jeh Johnson, Homeland
Security secretary, defended the president’s sweeping directive as
“common sense.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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