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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Senate Democrats Block Joint Negotiations on Homeland Security Funding

New York Times
By Ashley Parker
March 2, 2015

Senate Democrats on Monday blocked a House attempt to force joint negotiations over legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the fiscal year.

The vote, 47 to 43, again pushes the matter back to the House, where Speaker John A. Boehner confronts a likely choice between persuading an unruly group of conservative lawmakers to pass the funding, without any restrictions on President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, or building a majority on the backs of Democratic votes to avert a partial shutdown of the department before it runs out of money Friday at midnight.

Mr. Boehner also could try to rally support for a short-term funding measure, though that option would simply postpone the fight — and last week, his effort to pass a three-week funding bill led to a humiliating setback when his own members revolted.

Though the Senate last week passed a bill to finance the department, House Republicans refused to take up the legislation, instead preferring a bill they passed in January that funded the agency but also sought to gut the legal protections Mr. Obama has provided to as many as five million undocumented immigrants through executive actions.

Hours before money was set to run out last Friday night, Mr. Boehner, with the help of Democratic votes, managed to pass a measure to fund the agency for another week — just enough time, he hoped, to devise a strategy forward. House Republicans had hoped to enter into conference committee with the Senate to reconcile the differences between their funding bills — something Democrats had long made clear was unacceptable and officially rejected Monday evening.

At least some of the House conservatives who revolted against their leadership team seem willing to allow a partial shutdown of the agency in order to fight what they say is the president’s unconstitutional, executive overreach on immigration. The House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers, met Monday night to discuss strategies.

“We know that this is unconstitutional, and we know it’s unfair,” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Heritage Action, an outside conservative group, on Monday also urged lawmakers to vote against any “clean” Homeland Security spending bill, calling it “a blank check for amnesty.”

But many Republican senators are getting frustrated with their House colleagues, urging them to fund the department and fight Mr. Obama’s immigration policies at a different time.

“I don’t understand us, either,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “I think we’re dumb as a rock to do what we’re doing.”

Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, similarly urged the House to “do a clean bill.”

“Celebrate the court decision in Texas and move on,” said Mr. Flake, referring to a federal judge’s ruling last month that indefinitely halted the president’s executive actions on immigration. “Let’s get to some other priorities. ”

After House Democrats helped bail out Mr. Boehner Friday evening, providing him with the necessary votes to avert a partial shutdown, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, told her members in a letter, “Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week.”

House Republican leaders, however, insisted that they had made no agreement with Democrats promising a vote on a clean funding measure. But House Democrats said they were optimistic that their Republican counterparts would allow them to vote on a bill to fund Homeland Security with no additional provisions attached, later this week.

“We strongly believe it’s even clearer now that the House bill has been rejected for the fifth time by the United States Senate, and therefore the only path to go down would be to fund the Homeland Security Department,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the minority whip. “If we do a week or three weeks or nine weeks, at the end of the day, we’re going to be in the same position, so there’s nothing accomplished by going down that cul-de-sac.”

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