Congressional Republicans looking to use the “power of the purse” to narrowly target President Obama’s unilateral legalization of 4.1 million undocumented immigrants are going to have to find another way.
Under current law, funds to finance the president’s executive action are covered by user fees paid directly to immigration agencies and are not appropriated by Congress. So even if House and Senate Republicans withhold funds from the Homeland Security Department, which oversees immigration services and border enforcement, Obama’s move to grant temporary legal status and work permits to qualified illegal immigrants would continue apace.
Many Republicans, particularly conservatives who affiliate with the Tea Party, are skeptical of this claim, delivered like a bombshell late last week by House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky. His argument that defunding Homeland Security was insufficient to stop Obama was viewed as a possible ruse to convince rank-and-file Republicans to support an omnibus spending bill to fund the government through next October.
After all, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rogers’ fellow Kentucky Republican, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are determined to avoid a government shutdown. Removing the fight over Obama’s executive immigration action from the spending process would ensure that Republicans don’t end up in another losing battle over funding the government, as they did last year during their politically disastrous attempt to defund Obamacare.
But however suspicious Rogers’ claim appears to some, or however odd it sounds, experts familiar with the federal appropriations process support it, including Joshua Huder, a senior fellow with the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.
“That’s not wrong,” Huder told the Washington Examiner on Friday. The “best way” to attack Obama’s executive order, he said, is to pass legislation changing the underlying statute.
Huder confirmed that House Republicans could attach a policy rider to any appropriations legislation that funds either the entire government, or more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security. But two problems remain for Republicans who want to use Congress’ constitutional authority over spending to narrowly push back against Obama’s executive immigration action without risking a government shutdown:
• Any such bill must get 60 votes in the Senate, and is still subject to a presidential veto. Attaching a policy rider to change how immigration services are funded and administered could get tied up in the Senate, and such an impasse could lead to a government shutdown. Based on the small number of Senate Democrats who have announced their opposition to Obama’s executive order, rounding up 60 votes could prove difficult.
• Even if Congressional Republicans separated out funding for Homeland Security, as many favor, attached a rider to that bill, and managed to secure enough Senate votes to send it to Obama’s desk, the president could veto it. But suspending funds for Homeland Security wouldn’t stop the president’s executive legalization. However, it could halt everything else the agency oversees, including the border patrol, Coast Guard, airport screeners and disaster relief, just to name a few services.
Maybe the voters would blame the president for choosing “executive amnesty” over the rest of Homeland Security’s vital services.
But this risky game of chicken is exactly what Republicans are hoping to avoid early next year, just days after they assume full control of Congress for the first time in eight years.
Even most Tea Party Republicans insist they have no interest in shutting down the government. Across the board, Republicans fear that fighting a losing battle without an end game will prevent them from achieving a slate of legislative priorities, like tax reform and even repealing and replacing Obamacare, let alone send a message to voters that they are incapable of governing.
“We’ve got to fight him on this. But I think most [Republicans] also will not take their eye off the ball and be distracted by what I think is an intentional effort on [Obama’s] part to throw a grenade in the middle of our Republican conference and Senate and distract from actually getting our work done and moving the ball forward,” Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, said. “We’re trying to figure out what we have the ability to do.”
Republicans don’t have much time to settle on a strategy. The stopgap government funding measure approved by Congress just before the midterm elections runs out on Dec. 11, about 10 days after lawmakers return from their Thanksgiving recess.
Many congressional Republicans, particularly House and Senate leaders but also others, want to pass an omnibus spending bill that would run through the end of fiscal 2015 and ensure once and for all that a government shutdown is off the table. Others want to pass a short-term continuing resolution to bridge the gap between the lame duck period and January, when the GOP Senate majority will be seated, and use their expanded power to confront Obama.
Boehner and McConnell have decried Obama’s executive legalization as unconstitutional and an unprecedented White House power grab, and are vowing to use all of the tools at their disposal to fight it. But neither leader has laid out a specific strategy as yet, and their members are filling the void with proposals of their own.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, advocates defunding Homeland Security and refusing to grant Senate consideration and approval of any Obama nominee not “vital” to national security. Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, also supports defunding Homeland Security. Labrador also wants the House to formally “censure” the president.
Other Republicans, like House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas and incoming Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, are responding by pushing legislation focused on border security, despite complaints from most of their GOP colleagues that Obama’s action has diminished the prospects for bipartisan agreement on immigration reform in the next Congress.
“I don’t think it’s helpful in terms of his relationship with the new Congress,” Johnson said. “From my standpoint, my top priority for chairman of Homeland Security-Government Affairs is, write a bill and pass a bill securing the border and enforcing our immigration laws.”
