House Postpones Immigration Vote Until Next Week
House postpones immigration vote until next week
The ‘compromise’ bill was expected to fail on the House floor in a blow to Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.
By Rachel Bade, Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan
06/21/2018 09:26 AM EDT
Updated 06/21/2018 06:50 PM EDT
President Donald Trump's message didn't do anything but make the situation more difficult for Speaker Paul Ryan and his top lieutenants. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
Updated: 6:50 p.m.: House Republicans are delaying a vote on a ‘compromise’ immigration package until next week, Speaker Paul Ryan told lawmakers.
A vote had been set for Thursday, but GOP leaders announced earlier that it would take place on Friday. Republicans now plan to modify the bill again in a bid to win 218 votes next week.
Original story:
House GOP leaders, staring down an embarrassing defeat, postponed a vote on a “compromise” immigration proposal until Friday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced following a hastily called meeting of top Republicans.
The delay comes as House conservatives have been asking Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) team for more time to review the legislation or negotiate furtherchanges. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) had also advocated for additional time to whip the bill all week.
GOP leaders, however, are under no impression that they'll be able to secure the 218 votes needed in the next 24 hours to pass the measure, and they only agreed to the postponement under pressure from conservative members who are opposed to the legislation in the first place.
A more conservative immigration proposal authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) failed on a 193-231 vote. Forty one Republicans voted against the measure.
The delay of a final vote on the compromise measure — hashed out during weeks of discussions between party leaders, GOP moderates and immigration hardliners — is designed to give members more time to reviewthe bill. The leadership has scheduled a conference-wide briefing on the measure for Thursday afternoon.
“I think it is a mistake that leadership is rushing this [compromise] bill to the floor today,” Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), one of the top negotiators of the measure, said before the delay was announced."I actually think with a little bit more conversation, we could actually get to an agreement on things."
But other members weren't so sure. Another conservative, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), complained that there was a "full-court press" devoted to whipping the compromise bill while the conservative bill was assumed to fail from the start.
The Goodlatte bill "just got 193 votes and none of that happened for it," Perry said in an interview. "You can imagine what might've happened with some small changes... and the full-court push from leadership and the administration on that original bill."
The delay comes just a few hours after President Donald Trump publicly undercut House Republicans, asking why they were even bothering to vote on immigration legislation in the first place when it can't get through the Senate. Trump's message didn't do anything but make the situation more difficult for Ryan and his top lieutenants.
"What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct (which they feel is good for them in the Mid-Terms)," he tweeted Thursday.
House GOP leadership had been trying to get Trump to endorse the compromise bill. He even came to the Hill and promised them he was with them "1000 percent." Yet Trump failed to say he would only sign that legislation; Trump said he would support that measure or the more conservative Goodlatte bill.
Trump's failure to weigh in heavily for the compromise proposal emboldened conservatives to take a harder line on the compromise bill, virtually ensuring that nothing is likely to pass the House.
GOPmoderates, eagerly awaiting the vote on the compromise bill, appeared fine with Thursday's delay — so long as it only lasts one day. Should leadership postpone the matter indefinitely, moderates say leaders would be breaking their word.
By moving ahead with a vote on the Goodlate bill, Ryan effectively killed a discharge petition that moderate Republicans had been threatening to pursue with Democrats to force votes on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Now moderates don't even have that option to fall back on.
Earlier in the day,Ryan defended his decision to bring that bill and a more conservative proposal to the floor.
"We’re giving the members the ability to vote for the policy of their preference," Ryan told reporters Thursday morning. "The bills that are coming to the floor today are bills that if it got to [Trump's] desk he would sign it into law. Therefore it is a legitimate exercise."
But neither bill was expected to survive a House floor vote, much less make it to Trump — providing a damaging blow to an already weakened lame-duck speaker. Ryan's team has downplayed the possibility of passing anything, and the Wisconsin Republican has long maintained that any solution for Dreamers would likely have to be bipartisan.
Story Continued Below
The failure of the House to pass any immigration legislation would be a setback for Trump, who pitched himself to voters as the world’s greatest dealmaker. Not only does the exercise make the president look weak, the collapse of the bill will undercut his message of blaming Democrats for problems at the border. Republicans can’t get on the same page themselves.
Time and again in his dealings with Congress, and especially with Republicans, Trump has shown that he doesn’t know how to close deals on legislation. At crucial times, he hasn’t been able to move votes, due in part to his failure or unwillingness to grasp the intricacies of legislation and policy.
Trump can attack Republicans in Congress, he can confuse them, and he can scare them, but he often can’t make them vote how he wants.
The action Thursday came a day after tensions between leaders, conservatives and moderates boiled over on the House floor, with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows accusing Ryan of lying to him about what provisions the House would be voting on.
Both sides later chalked up the run-in as a misunderstanding, but ill will lingers among Republicans.
Conservatives are disappointed by Trump’s inability to sell the compromise bill and are therefore wary of voting “yes.” The package includes a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and some other types of immigrants, devised by Labrador.
But conservatives don’t like the final product. It would significantly curb family migration, end the diversity visa lottery program and appropriate $25 billion for a border wall. Critics on the right wanted additional provisions, such as E-Verify, which mandates that all businesses check the legal status of their workers.
The compromisebill’s likely failure is hardly the end of the immigration debate in Congress — Capitol Hill is still likely going to have to step in to address Trump’s “zero tolerance“ policy, which led to splitting up migrant families at the border.
The White House on Wednesday announced an executive order to stop the gut-wrenching separations. And Customs and Border Protection said it was in the process of reuniting children in its custody with parents or guardians following prosecution, though it’s unclear if or when the government will be able to reunify the more than 2,300 children already separated from their parents.
But as Nielsen told Republicans on Wednesday, the stay is only temporary. Republicans must act to address the issue, she said.
Senate Republicans are already crafting legislation to stop the policy, though according to one person familiar with Trump’s thinking, the president is not yet on board with a narrow fix. House Republicans have tucked their own solution into their compromise bill.
Ryan on Thursday wouldn't commit to bringing up a standalone bill to address family separations.
"If these bills do not pass today then we will cross that bridge when we get to it," he said. "But the last thing I want to do right now is undercut the votes that we’re about to have."
Ted Hesson and Matthew Nussbaum contributed to this report.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...n-trump-661214
