Wall Street Journal
By Nick Timiraos
March 1, 2015
House
Republican leaders vowed Sunday to keep trying to block President
Barack Obama ’s immigration measures as they continue to struggle over
how to keep funding the
Homeland Security Department.
Last
week’s messy one-week extension of the agency’s funding exposed deep
divides within the Republican Party over how to fight the
administration’s actions without shutting
down parts of the government.
“There’s
an element within our party…which is absolutely irresponsible,” said
Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. He lashed out
at conservative
Republicans for their willingness to jeopardize national security
funding. “They have no concept of reality,” he said.
Support
for a one-week funding patch came together late Friday after a separate
three-week short-term spending bill pushed by House Speaker John
Boehner (R., Ohio), was
defeated by his conservative flank. Funding for the agency had been set
to expire at midnight.
Republicans
have agreed to fund the agency but also want to use a spending bill to
block implementation of Mr. Obama’s executive action on immigration,
announced in November.
Senate Democrats have prevented the bill from coming up for a vote in
the Senate, which passed a separate measure Friday that didn’t include
the immigration language. That bill passed on a 68-31 vote.
Mr.
Boehner, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said he didn’t
believe conservative Republicans had a plan that could successfully have
passed the Senate and
been signed into law by Mr. Obama. “We get in an argument on tactics
from time to time,” he said. “The goals are all the same.”
Rep.
Steve Scalise, a conservative Republican from Louisiana who serves as
the majority whip, urged the Senate to work with the House to pass a
bill that would fund DHS
and block the president’s immigration moves.
“Let’s
go to conference and work out these differences and finally put a check
on this president,” he said, speaking on Fox News Sunday. “We’re going
to keep fighting
this battle.”
Republicans
tried to pin blame on Mr. Obama, who they said had overreached with his
immigration action last fall. But they conceded in television
interviews Sunday that
they needed to do a better job making that case.
“Look,
could we have done better Friday? Yes. And will we? Yes, we will,” said
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, (R., Calif.) the House Majority Leader, on NBC’s
“Meet the Press.”
Mr.
Boehner, pressed if he could still lead the House of Representatives,
said, “I think so. I’m not going to suggest it’s easy, because it’s
not.”
Later, asked if he liked his job, he said, “Most days. Friday wasn’t a whole lot of fun, but most days.”
Rep.
Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who heads the House Freedom Caucus that was
launched earlier this year to push policy further to the right,
dismissed out of hand the suggestion
that conservative Republicans were seeking to oust Mr. Boehner. “That’s
not the point. No, of course not,” he said on CNN.
Other
Republicans appeared ready to move on from last week’s funding fight.
Mr. King said Congress should pass a clean funding bill before the end
of the week. “There
is no doubt it will pass,” he said, adding that a “small group” of 40
to 50 Republicans had prevented that from happening last week.
He also warned that continued funding battles threatened to erode the party’s credibility heading into next year’s elections.
“Republicans
have to stand behind the speaker and make it clear we’re not going to
allow this faction to be dominating and to be impeding what we’re trying
to do,” Mr.
King said. “Otherwise, we have no chance of winning the presidential
race in 2016.”
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