Frustrated House Republicans are through negotiating with themselves.
Majority Whip Steve Scalise joined Senate Republicans for a private lunch on Wednesday to deliver a friendly but blunt message: House Republicans aren’t working on a “Plan B” to fund the Department of Homeland Security and won’t consider another bill until the Senate acts.
After four years of curtailing their agenda to the whims of Sen. Harry Reid and watching a Democratic-controlled Senate bury hundreds of House-passed bills, they’ve had enough.
“Frankly, they were a do-nothing majority, and now they’re trying to be a do-nothing minority,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said in an interview with reporters.
House Republicans concede that the DHS funding package they passed in early January won’t survive the Senate intact.
The legislation, while fully funding Homeland Security, would reverse President Obama’s executive order to legalize and grant work permits to 4.1 million illegal immigrants. Senate Democrats are sticking with Obama on immigration policy; even those who claim to oppose the president’s executive action on separation-of-powers grounds have voted to sustain their party’s filibuster of the House bill. Democrats are obstructing Senate Republicans from even bringing the House package to the floor for debate.
But House Republicans say that with the Senate in GOP hands following a big victory in the midterm elections, the onus should be on the Democrats to explain why blocking the will of the majority and shutting down DHS is preferable to House legislation that would roll back Obama’s “unconstitutional executive amnesty.”
There’s another reason House Republicans claim they won’t budge before the Senate passes some sort of vehicle that funds DHS.
Folding to a Democratic minority that won’t even allow the Republican Senate majority to debate and amend their bill would set a damaging precedent for upcoming confrontations with the White House.
“We’ve done our job. They need to pass something,” Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, told the Washington Examiner.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called three votes to open debate on the House DHS package — and three times the Democrats have filibustered. Democrats are holding out for “clean” legislation that funds Homeland Security through the Sept. 30 conclusion of fiscal 2015, and accuse congressional Republicans with playing politics with U.S. national security at a time when the country faces renewed threats of domestic terrorism.
Earlier this year, Senate Republican leaders vowed that DHS would receive new funding before money ran out on Feb. 27. And, for a few days after Democrats blocked debate on the House bill, McConnell and his leadership team signaled that their hands were tied and it was up to the House to pass new legislation that might have a better shot at receiving 60 votes. House Republicans, aware of McConnell’s challenges in a chamber where nearly every bill requires a super-majority, were expecting more political support for their bill. The blowback was swift.
Senate Republican leaders appear to have received the message. Majority Whip John Cornyn said flatly on Wednesday that Democrats “should not think” that Republicans will run scared and move a clean DHS funding bill at the 11th hour to prevent the agency from running out of money. When asked by reporters Wednesday to further explain the Senate GOP position that the House needs to pass another bill, Cornyn pushed back.
“Can I correct you? We said that Democrats need to do something,” the Texas senator said. “It is illogical to say that Republicans are blocking a Homeland Security bill when the Republican House has passed one.”
House Speaker John Boehner made headlines when he said during a news conference that Senate Democrats should “get off their ass” and allow debate on the $40 billion House-passed DHS package. GOP sources say the Ohio Republican’s comments reflected the deep-seated frustration among his members, explaining that Boehner was trying to send a clear message to the Senate that the House would not negotiate against itself by passing a weaker version of its original bill.
House Republican sources said it is possible that the House might pass a continuing resolution later this month that would keep DHS open short-term while keeping the fight over Obama’s executive order alive.
But for House GOP leaders, there is another crucial reason why they might stick to their guns on this issue. Forcing the Senate to act on their bill first, even if it results in the legislation being stripped down to a clean DHS funding vehicle, would be an important lesson for Tea Party-affiliated Republicans and newly elected members who have expectations for what is possible in a GOP-controlled Senate that don’t match reality.
“We have to educate members about the limits of the Senate. But that can only happen if the Senate acts,” a House Republican confided.
