Thread: House Chaos Leaves GOP Senators Fuming

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/2...enators-fuming

House chaos on DHS funding leaves GOP senators fuming

By Alexander Bolton - 02/28/15 06:11 AM EST


Senate Republicans are fuming over the House GOP’s decision to extend the standoff over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a move that they say uses up political oxygen and burns precious time on the legislative calendar.

GOP senators say it’s time to move on to other issues, such as the budget, trade legislation, and regulatory and tax reform.

They must defend 24 seats in the 2016 election and worry that voters could soon start to question their ability to govern unless they can move forward with a more substantive agenda.

The fight over President Obama’s executive actions on immigration brought that agenda to a standstill in February, as the threat of a homeland security shutdown thwarted other priorities.

“I just think we ought to move on to other things. I’m not sure how it helps for the American people to have the perception that Republicans in the Senate and Republicans in the House are at odds with each other,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“We have a lot of initiatives I think we could show the American people we can work together on,” he added.

Senate Republicans say there’s no need to extend the battle over immigration given that a federal court in Texas has declared that Obama’s executive action violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

“Why don’t we just look at the court decision in Texas, declare victory and move on?” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Senate Republicans say they expect the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold Judge Andrew Hanen’s ruling on the district level.

“When the judge ruled, that was the way I wanted to end it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

House conservatives say they want to pressure Senate Democrats to agree to a bicameral conference, in which the two chambers would hash out a compromise that would both fund homeland security and repeal some of Obama’s orders.

“It’s time for democracy to work and the way our process works is when the House and Senate disagree, they go to conference and work it out,” said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.).

But Senate Republicans say hopes of going to conference are delusional. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ruled out the possibility Thursday.

The goodwill that would be required to revive such a process may never have been there in the first place — and is almost certainly gone after a one-week continuing resolution to fund DHS was finally passed amid near-chaos at the Capitol on Friday night.

“What’s frustrating is that the House guys think any of the Democrats over here are under pressure to vote or cloture. They’re in their own little bubble, it’s myopic,” said a Senate Republican, who requested anonymity to vent his irritation with House colleagues.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made four unsuccessful attempts to start debate on a House-passed DHS funding bill that included immigration riders.

Democrats only allowed the legislation to advance after McConnell agreed to replace it with a clean funding bill. Not a single Democrat defected.

McConnell and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have appeared out of sync in recent weeks as tensions ratcheted up between the chambers. Boehner said Wednesday that he had not spoken with McConnell in two weeks.

Senate Republicans facing tough reelection fights next year have pressed the House in recent days to accept a clean bill funding DHS through September.

“I think the feeling of most people is this is the fight that we should have not fought,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a vulnerable incumbent, told reporters. “We really, as a governing party, we’ve got to fund DHS and say to the House, ‘Here’s a straw so you can suck it up.’”

But House Republicans say they have their own message for the Senate: the 60-vote threshold for passing bills in the upper chamber is a poor excuse for inaction.

Boehner ally Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) speaking before the push for a three-week continuing resolution failed, asserted that the move was intended to push back against the Senate as much as anything else. He noted that the implementation of Obama’s executive action will likely be decided by the courts.

“I think the decisive arena is the courts,” he said. “I think this is about holding our own ground and it’s also a message to the Senate. There’s a lot of different levels to this. On some levels it’s Republicans versus Democrats but there’s a lot of House versus Senate.”

Cole said the message to the Senate is, “you really do have to vote on things and you really do have to go to conference.”

“You’re not going to just drop something on us the last day and run out of town,” he said.

Even a one-week stopgap allows House Republicans to save face by not voting on a seven-month clean funding bill while the Conservative Political Action Conference meets in Washington this week. It’s one of the nation’s largest gathering of conservatives and a caving-in to Democrats would incense many attendees.

Conservative critics have pilloried McConnell this week for moving a funding bill stripped of immigration riders.

“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has surrendered in the fight to stop President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty and now he’s working with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to force American taxpayers to fund the president’s lawlessness,” the Senate Conservatives Fund wrote in an email to supporters.

But GOP senators have praised McConnell for trying to find a way to avert a DHS shutdown.

“Mitch has done a good job. He’s been emboldened,” said one.

“I just think we ought to move on to other things. I’m not sure how it helps for the American people to have the perception that Republicans in the Senate and Republicans in the House are at odds with each other,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“We have a lot of initiatives I think we could show the American people we can work together on,” he added.

It's not a perception, it's reality. GOP Senators sold us out. You were supposed to agree with the House and defund DHS until this corrupt Department is straightened out. The House eventually sold us out, thanks to you. So whine all you want, you made the wrong move, the wrong decision, and now you'll pay for that. Had you stopped the funding, you would have been heroes to all of US.

But you didn't. You gave these thieves and traitors every dime they asked for in spite of extreme support to do otherwise and defund this Department that has and will continue to use taxpayer money to do the opposite of what this department is funded to do, secure our borders, stop illegal immigration, uphold national sovereignty and protect the national security of the United States.

You did it, so now you wear it.

GOP senators say it’s time to move on to other issues, such as the budget, trade legislation, and regulatory and tax reform.

Well, I don't see how you intend to do anything with the budget when you've just authorized and funded the Department of Homeland Security to open the borders, legalize 20 million illegal aliens, add them all to the welfare rolls, steal American jobs and deflate our wages and salaries, add the unemployed and underemployed Americans to the welfare rolls, hand out tax credit welfare refunds to illegal aliens, increase the financial burdens of our schools, colleges and hospitals, and run up taxes and the national debt to pay for it.

Apparently you flunked third grade math, so I'm hereby proposing a Congressional Candidate Math Test, which could save US a bundle if we had a bunch of folks who can count in Congress.

Trade? What do you want to do on trade? More free trade treason agreements? Really? Haven't the Bushes and Obama done quite enough damage to our country on trade? Do you morons even know how to look up the trade statistics for the United States? Do let us know if you have any intention of being Real Republicans and are planning to reverse these heinous free trade treason policies, which aren't free, because they've impoverished our citizens and bankrupted our nation, and intend to restore the protected trade policies we desperately need and want.

And tax reform? Really? More of the same o, same o? Or do you plan to pass the FairTax? S 155 in the US Senate, because if you're aren't talking about passing the FairTax and instead are planning to play around with the income tax again, your other "initiatives" are as worthless as your promises to stop illegal immigration have proven to be.

But GOP senators have praised McConnell for trying to find a way to avert a DHS shutdown.

“Mitch has done a good job. He’s been emboldened,” said one.

Yeah, all criminals feel emboldened when they get away with murder. I guess that's why he identifies so well with Obama and illegal aliens.

They must defend 24 seats in the 2016 election and worry that voters could soon start to question their ability to govern unless they can move forward with a more substantive agenda.

The number one threat to national security and the economic and fiscal well-being of the United States is illegal immigration. How can there be a more "substantive agenda" to prove your ability to "govern" than stopping that threat by defunding the department responsible for causing the threat to begin with?

All you've done is prove you not only don't know the issues in our country, you don't want to solve them.

“Why don’t we just look at the court decision in Texas, declare victory and move on?” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Senate Republicans say they expect the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold Judge Andrew Hanen’s ruling on the district level.

“When the judge ruled, that was the way I wanted to end it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Because there is no victory, you ignoramus! It's just an injunction that can be removed, either by the Judge who issued it or the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. There's been no trial yet, there's been no final ruling in this case. When there is a final ruling, you can be assured it will languish in the US Supreme Court, and probably end up the the same way the states lawsuit against Obama Care did. In the meantime, the Administration can argue, there is no dispute with Congress over the legality of DHS activities, because they authorized and funded it with full knowledge of our "shadow" and publicized illegal activities. Now what is the Supreme Court supposed to do? Override the Executive Branch and the US Congress in favor of the states? The states whole argument is that the Executive Branch acted outside of the law, without authority from Congress. Well, if Congress authorizes funding for the Department's illegal activities, how is the Executive Branch acting outside of the law?

You blew it, Morons.

You go get'em. Judy! About the time I want to give it up, you re-invigorate the possibility of hope. but it does not emanate from the two major parties!

House Chaos Leaves GOP Senators Fuming

And who else is "fuming"? The who else that matters, which is 90% of Republicans and 62% of the American People, that's who's fuming and it's not because of the US House of Representatives trying to stop this insanity, we're fuming at the spineless GOP Senate who couldn't and wouldn't just walk away from DHS and leave it unfunded until either Congress can stop it with legislation or the courts decide on the amnesty issue.

That's all you had to do, was just say no to funding a corrupt department that through illegal subversive and treasonous actions is solely responsible for causing the greatest single threat to our national security and economic well-being which is illegal immigration, the department that has $100 billion a year to secure our ports and borders, protect our coasts, and catch and deport illegal aliens, a department that has not only failed to do its job, has now openly refused to do so.

You will feel the outrage in 2016.