New York Times
By Ashley Parker
February 27, 2015
Republicans
vowing to govern effectively as a congressional majority failed a
fundamental test Friday, when House leaders only narrowly managed to
avert a partial shutdown
of the Department of Homeland Security after an embarrassing defeat
earlier in the day.
The
seven-day funding extension, approved by a vote of 357 to 60, came just
hours before money for the department was to run out at midnight. The
accord was reached after
a stunning and humiliating setback for Speaker John A. Boehner and his
leadership team earlier Friday, when the House voted against their
original plan to extend funding for the department for three weeks — a
position that Mr. Boehner had considered a fail-safe.
More than 50 House Republicans defected, voting against the bill.
The
speaker was rescued by Democrats, who supported his offer of a weeklong
extension because they believed it would lead to a vote next week on
full funding for the department
through the fiscal year, without any provisions related to President
Obama’s executive actions on immigration included in the House’s
original legislation. A spokesman for Mr. Boehner said the speaker had
made no promises or deals with House Democrats to guarantee
such a vote.
“Your
vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week,”
wrote Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader,
in a letter to her
members on Friday night urging them to support Mr. Boehner’s seven-day
funding measure. The House vote came after the Senate had already agreed
to a seven-day funding extension.
About
10 minutes before the funding was set to expire, the White House
announced that the president had signed the weeklong extension.
On
Monday, the Senate will consider whether to enter into joint
negotiations with the House over Mr. Obama’s immigration policies,
although Senate Democrats have already
promised to block such a move.
The
House struggle came after the Senate passed its own legislation in the
morning, 68 to 31, to fund the department through the fiscal year — even
though senators had
expected the House to pass its own temporary measure.
The
strong Republican vote for the Senate bill also highlighted the deep
rift between House and Senate Republicans, who have struggled to agree
on a pragmatic path forward
to both keep the agency running and express their displeasure with Mr.
Obama’s recent immigration actions.
“We
should have never fought this battle,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk,
Republican of Illinois. “In my view, in the long run, if you are blessed
with the majority, you are
blessed with the power to govern. If you’re going to govern, you have
to act responsibly.”
Just
two months into the new Congress, Republicans were sounding a grim
note, far removed from their triumphant election victories in November.
Senator Lindsey Graham,
Republican of South Carolina, said Friday that “2015 is about us.”
“There’s
nobody to blame but us now when it comes to the appropriations
process,” Mr. Graham said. “If we can run the place more traditional,
like a business, so to speak,
I think we flourish. If we self-inflict on the budget, and the
appropriations process, and we can’t get the government managed well,
then I think we’re in trouble.”
In
the aftermath of the failed vote, the Republican leadership team met
for hours Friday night to come up with a new approach, but their options
were limited given the
deep rebellion by their more conservative members against supporting
anything that does not halt the president’s immigration policies. As the
legislation stalled, Mr. Boehner walked wordlessly from the chamber,
his head down.
Friday’s
crisis represented a perilous situation for the speaker, who since
taking control of the House in 2011 has struggled to unite his fractious
rank-and-file on spending
and policy issues.
Mr.
Boehner wanted to avoid a shutdown for which he knows Republicans will
be blamed, but he cannot risk getting out too far ahead of his
conservative members, who are
dug in against the president.
The
failed vote was also a rebuke for Representative Steve Scalise of
Louisiana, the Republican whip, who ran for the No. 3 position last year
on the promise that as a
red-state lawmaker he would be able to help persuade recalcitrant
conservatives to support leadership proposals.
“Our
leadership set the stage for this,” said Representative John Fleming,
Republican of Louisiana. “Finally at the last hour we hear, ‘O.K., well
give us three weeks
and we’ll try to fire the base up and get something done.’ Well what
have we been doing for the last eight weeks? We’ve not been doing
anything.”
For
Mr. Boehner, said Representative Steve Israel of New York, a member of
the Democratic leadership, “homeland security is the security of his
gavel, and tonight it’s
less secure.”
Josh
Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters earlier that
Mr. Obama would sign a short-term bill, if needed. “If the president is
faced with a choice
of having the Department of Homeland Security shut down or fund that
department for a short term, the president is not going to allow the
agency to shut down,” he said.
After
the Republicans gained control of the Senate and increased their
margins in the House in the November elections, both Mr. Boehner and
Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the majority leader, promised to reverse Congress’s pattern
of hurtling from crisis to crisis, even over matters like appropriations
that were once relatively routine.
But
in their first big test, the Republican leaders often seemed to be
working from different playbooks, at times verging on hostility, with
each saying it was time for
the other chamber to act.
The
funding stalemate bodes poorly for any larger policy accomplishments
this year, leaving lawmakers pessimistic that the 114th Congress will be
able to work in a bipartisan
fashion on more complicated issues.
The
Office of Management and Budget has said that a vote to increase the
nation’s debt limit will be necessary by mid- to late summer, and
lawmakers were also hoping to
take up trade policy, as well as at least a modest overhaul of the
nation’s tax code — undertakings that now look increasingly imperiled.
Mr.
Obama has already vetoed the Republicans’ main legislative achievement
this year — a bill to start construction on the Keystone XL oil
pipeline.
“The
D.H.S. funding fight is the first test of the new Republican Congress
and so far, they’re failing,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat
of New York.
The
fight over the homeland security funding — coupled with a separate
revolt by House conservatives — also upended Republican plans to
overhaul No Child Left Behind,
the 2001 education law that was a signature domestic achievement of
President George W. Bush.
Republican
leadership had expected to pass a new bill on Friday to reduce the
federal government’s role in public education; Mr. Obama has threatened a
veto. But the vote
was put off after Heritage Action, the conservative advocacy group,
waged a campaign against the measure, saying it does not do enough to
limit federal authority.
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