Wall Street Journal
By Siobhan Hughes and Kristina Peterson
May 10, 2018
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), facing rising discontent within GOP ranks over congressional inaction on immigration policy, is working to tamp down an attempt by a group of centrist Republicans to force votes on the issue.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Mr. Ryan argued that the move to use a “discharge petition” to force floor votes on immigration legislation risked handing Democrats a legislative victory while also triggering a veto by President Donald Trump.
“I want to fix this problem, so I would like to have an immigration vote before the midterms, but I want to have a vote on something that can make it into law. I don’t want to have show ponies,” he said. “I want to have actual law. That means the White House has to be a part of this.”
The discharge petition was initiated by lawmakers including Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Jeff Denham of California, vulnerable House Republicans in heavily Hispanic districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. It gained momentum thanks to the support of other vulnerable Republicans and an assortment of others from districts with agricultural interests that rely on immigrant workers.
The measures in question run the gamut from one backed by Democrats to establish a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to a more conservative approach that would provide $30 billion for a border wall and that emphasizes interior enforcement. In the middle is a bipartisan bill that includes border-security measures and would give protections to the young immigrants, widely known as Dreamers, and eventually offer citizenship. A fourth measure is a placeholder that Mr. Ryan can fill with legislation of his choosing.
Before he became speaker, Mr. Ryan was involved in efforts to get his party behind an immigration bill. But he has been reluctant to risk splitting his conference on such a contentious issue just months before midterm elections.
Mr. Ryan’s lame-duck status—he plans to retire from the House when his term ends in January—also removed a traditional impediment to filing a discharge petition, which is the unspoken risk that leaders will retaliate later against anyone who bucks their authority.
“Let’s be honest—when you have a speaker who’s not returning and others wishing to move up the leadership ladder, you don’t have that certain kind of leverage that you might otherwise have,” said Rep. Ryan Costello (R., Pa.), who isn’t running for re-election. He said that House Republican leaders know they might need centrists’ support in a short few months so aren’t “in the business of saying what you’re not going to get if you do this.”
Mr. Ryan, for his part, also is aware that a partisan immigration measure has little chance of passing the House, a nod to the problems conservatives have faced trying to pass a GOP-only immigration bill.
“It’s clear to us that we’re going to have to have a bill that’s going to be bipartisan, one that the president can support,” Mr. Ryan said Thursday. “That’s what we’re working on right now.”
Some rank-and-file Republicans who favor some action on immigration say such promises have become empty because they have heard the same arguments for years. The gridlock was why President Barack Obama first established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to shield from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Last year, Mr. Trump canceled the program, giving Congress until March to come up with a replacement. But while Democrats largely favored keeping the program, neither side could agree on which combination of immigration measures would accompany a deal. Though the program expired, a federal court has ordered the administration to continue it for now, easing some of the urgency for lawmakers to agree to a fix.
“Leadership was not responding,” said Rep. Chris Collins (R., N.Y.), who signed the discharge petition in order to help dairy farms in his district that rely on undocumented workers. “There was no indication they were going to do any immigration bill this year. It’s just not acceptable to me or some of the others.”
So far, 17 House Republicans have formally signed the petition, the procedural tool for forcing a floor vote. A total of 218 signatures are needed for it to trigger the votes. Sponsors are within striking distance of getting the 25 GOP signatures needed to join the 193 Democrats who they are gambling would sign it, based on their previous support for earlier immigration measures. Democrats express wariness about joining the effort but are expected to back it.
“I think we are saying ‘show us what you got,’ ” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.).
The petition, which was filed on Wednesday, would set up votes on four immigration measures, and the one with the most votes would pass. That procedure-within-a-procedure is known as “Queen of the Hill” and was used in 2015 to resolve an internal GOP dispute over a budget.
It is a measure of the assertiveness of the procedural maneuver that Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a founder of the House Freedom Caucus, saw the centrists as having essentially replicated the strategies of his group, which has a reputation for hardball tactics.
“I understand the tactical move—it’s the kind of move that the Freedom Caucus would make, so I get that the rules are the rules and if they want to use the rules in that way, God bless them, they get to do it,” Mr. Jordan said. “I don’t like it, but you know I appreciate their tactical savvy.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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