One of the nation’s most conservative senators said there will not be a government shutdown fight over President Obama’s planned action on immigration.
Sen. Mike Lee, a Tea Party conservative, said he agreed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who recently dismissed any possibility that Congress would fail to pass a government funding bill by a Dec. 11 deadline.
“I think Senator McConnell is right,” Lee said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We’re not heading into a government shutdown.”
Lee was recently elected to chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, a panel that will play a major role in determining the agenda of the new GOP Senate majority in January.
Lee said Republicans don’t have a specific plan yet to respond to Obama on immigration.
“Exactly what we do may depend on what he does, when he does it and how he goes about it, and what his proposed basis for doing it is,” Lee said. “We are standing ready, looking at the fact that it is important for us to defend the rule of law and that the institutional prerogative of Congress to be the lawmaking body is respected.”
Lee said the new GOP majority would move to repeal at least parts of the federal healthcare law, saying a full repeal “is likely,” and could involve using a controversial 51-vote procedure known as budget reconciliation.
The GOP will likely move quickly, he said, to repeal provisions of the law, including the medical device tax, the law’s definition of a full-time work week as 30 hours and the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.
