The Senate on Wednesday forged ahead with a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, while House Republicans were at odds over a plan to strip out provisions rolling back President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
With the DHS budget set to expire Friday, the bill advanced in the Senate on a 98-2 procedural vote after Democratic leaders abandoned a vow not to support it unless they had assurances that it could pass the House of Representatives. Final Senate passage of the bill could come as early as Thursday.
“It’s an important step to be able to send the House of Representatives a bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters.
But the fate of DHS funding remained unclear Wednesday in the House. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was mum on how his chamber will address McConnell’s plan.
“I’m waiting for the Senate to pass a bill,” Boehner told reporters after the meeting. “I don’t know what the Senate is capable of passing. And until I see what they’re going to pass, no decision has been made on the House side.”
Senate Democrats ended a filibuster of the bill after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., unveiled a two-stage plan to allow a vote on a homeland security bill without the immigration provisions and a separate vote on a measure that would halt Obama’s 2014 executive action to defer the deportation of millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.
While some House Republicans favor a vote on a clean DHS bill, others view McConnell’s plan as surrendering to Obama’s immigration moves, which they believe are unconstitutional.
An evening after some Senate Republicans criticized McConnell’s plan, only Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and James Inhofe of Oklahoma voted “no” on the procedural vote.
If Congress fails to approve spending for DHS by Friday, the agency that helps secure the nation’s airports, coastline, U.S. borders and government leaders faces a partial shutdown. Some 30,000 employees would be furloughed. But most of the department’s operations would continue functioning with workers who would not be paid.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure it passes by an overwhelming vote,” Reid said.
The Obama administration Wednesday continued its call for a DHS bill minus immigration restrictions. Hoping to keep the pressure on Congress, Obama traveled to Miami for a nationally televised town hall meeting on immigration.
Obama told the town hall audience, “What we said to Republicans is, ‘Instead of trying to hold hostage funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is so important for our national security, fund that and let’s get on with passing comprehensive immigration reform.’”
He added that “if Mr. McConnell . . . and the speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote over whether what I’m doing is legal or not they can have that vote. I will veto that vote because I’m absolutely confident it’s the right thing we do.”
Earlier, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, “There seems to be a majority in both houses who are for funding the Department of Homeland Security, so it is up to the speaker and the majority leader to get together and figure it out.”
Boehner told House Republicans during a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday that he hadn’t spoken with McConnell for two weeks, according to lawmakers who were in the room.
Several rank-and-file Republicans left the session upset about McConnell’s plan and frustrated over what they perceived as no direction from Boehner on what he intends to do in the closing days to the DHS deadline.
“The McConnell plan? You mean the Reid plan,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. “It’s putting Harry Reid back in charge of the Senate. A real win is to stop the president’s unconstitutional, illegal amnesty and have some language (in the DHS bill). That’s the only way we can define victory.”
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said he “couldn’t support a clean DHS without addressing the president’s unconstitutional actions,” but he said he is open to yet-to-be determined options. “This is an environment of chaos,” Franks said. “Stay tuned.”
Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., said what the House will do is “the $94 question.”
“How does the impasse get broken?” he said. “A lot of people would simply like it to go away, they don’t want a showdown. This is a bigger question than a fig-leaf, political cover vote to accompany a clean DHS vote. I’m still in holding out camp.”
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