Two Republicans newly elected to the U.S. Senate warned President Obama on Sunday that a move to take executive action on immigration will thwart a comprehensive deal with Congress.
But Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who defeated Senate Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor earlier this month, and Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., who was also elected to the Senate, appeared split on how far Congress should go to stop Obama from taking executive action.
“Congress uses our power to control how taxpayer dollars are spent to put limitations on what the president can do,” Cotton said.
Cotton is among GOP lawmakers pushing for Republican leaders to use the upcoming government spending bill to defund an executive move on immigration. Such a move could trigger a fight over the spending bill, which must pass by Dec. 11 to avoid a shutdown of the federal government.
But Lankford, who is a member of the House GOP leadership, said Republicans are pushing the president to avoid taking executive action so the two sides can work out a deal on immigration reform in the new year, when Republicans will have control of the House and the Senate.
“The significant part of this is, we still hope to be able to reach out and work with the president on this,” Lankford said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We are not pursuing a government shutdown.”
But Cotton and other conservative Republicans want the party to use the “power of the purse” to stop Obama.
On Fox, Cotton told host Chris Matthews that voters sent a message about immigration on Nov. 4, and they oppose Obama taking unilateral action to deal with illegal immigrants.
“Immigration was a central issue in my campaign,” Cotton said on the show. “I won by 17 points. The American people have spoken loudly about the kind of immigration reform they want, and it is not what the president is proposing.”
Cotton added, “The president thinks only a few crazy conservatives in Congress think like this and nobody else does. He’s misjudged the American people.”
Both Cotton and Lankford have spoken to the president by phone since their election victories.
Lankford said the president called and said he is optimistic about working together with Republicans in the new Congress. Lankford said he told the president that Obama has long passed on that opportunity after he rejected GOP immigration measures passed by the House which would have increased visas for highly skilled immigrants.
“I told him we had ways to work together a year ago on some things,” Lankford said, adding that he believes Obama’s policy has been that “if we are not going to get everything we want, then we are going to do nothing.”
