Philip Grey, 8:34 a.m. CST December 12, 2014

UPDATE: The $1.1 trillion 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed Thursday night with support of House Democrats after President Obama urged approval.

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-Brentwood) is among an estimated 70 Republicans opposing the House Continuing Resolution to fund most of the government through September 2015, citing the bill's failure to stop President Barack Obama's executive action to expand de facto amnesty for an estimated 4-5 million undocumented immigrants.

"Unfortunately," said Blackburn in a statement released early Thursday afternoon, "this spending package fails to take the necessary actions to defund the President's lawless amnesty. As a result, I cannot vote in support of this measure. It is not fair that hard-working taxpayers in Tennessee will now have to compete for jobs with illegal aliens to whom the President is unilaterally granting work permits at a time when our workforce participation rate sits at a 36-year low and more than 90 million Americans are out of work. That is why I fought for and passed my bill in the House this summer to freeze the President's unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. King Obama's amnesty is turning America into a lawless open borders society."

Blackburn, who represents Clarksville in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District, has been in the forefront of House Republicans fighting the executive action even before it was announced by the President in mid-November, shortly after the mid-term elections returned control of the Senate to the Republican party and maintained Republican control of the House.

CRomnibus

At stake in the current fight, as legislators on both sides seek to avoid a government shutdown, is approval of the 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which would fund 11 of 12 appropriations bills through the end of the fiscal year in September 2015.

A 12th appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would be funded under a temporary continuing resolution that would expire Feb. 27, as lawmakers would take up the contentious topic of defunding the President's executive action on immigration as a separate issue.

The deal also contains emergency funding for operations combating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and continuing domestic and international efforts to stem the Ebola pandemic.

The opposition of a substantial number of House Republicans to the bill – called by some the "CRomnibus" due to the continuing resolution attached to the legislation – means that Republican House leadership needs Democratic votes to gain the necessary 218 votes for approval ahead of the congressional holiday recess, which was supposed to begin Thursday.

However, Democratic support, which seemed likely earlier in the week, is now in jeopardy due to strong Democratic opposition, led by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, to two sections of the bill. One section would weaken provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill, according to Democrats, and another would change campaign finance regulations to allow bigger donations to party committees.

A vote was scheduled on the measure for Thursday afternoon but stalled after more than an hour of debate, leaving open the possibility that a three-day continuing resolution would be necessary to fund the government through the weekend, keeping legislators in town until the House could craft a new bill.

'Clear message'

Said Blackburn on Thursday afternoon from her Washington, D.C. office, "Where the bill is right now is we're waiting to vote on passage.

"We (House Republicans opposing the President's executive action on immigration) have tried since August to try to work with the leadership to find a way to defund or stall the President's executive amnesty before he took the action in November, so now we're trying to freeze it until we can get back here in January and work on getting a new (DHS) funding measure to the floor in February. That's the posture that we're in now.

"I think the American people were loud and clear when they voted in November that they want things to change in Washington, that they did not want this executive amnesty to take place. It was the biggest issue we had in November. They (Republican voters) know we cannot take some of the measures we would like to take until we (Republicans) take control of the Senate in January. They would like us to send the strongest possible bill to the Senate in January."

Under the omnibus bill as currently written, Blackburn said, provisions of the executive action on immigration administered by DHS would be funded through February even as House and Senate Republicans would be working to undo them.

Blackburn said she had spent much of the day talking to constituents in her district who were sending a clear message of support for her opposition to the spending bill as currently written.

"They want a 'no' vote on the bill," she said. "They thanked me for being a 'no' vote. However, they also understand that voting 'yes' on the rule allows the debate to go forward, and they think that's the right thing to do so that we actually get the bill on the floor and everyone has to weigh in with a 'yes' or 'no.'"

The rule vote Blackburn spoke of, usually a formality to get a bill on the floor, almost went down in defeat on Thursday afternoon.

Blackburn said that while she was optimistic that short-term funding mechanisms could be found to forestall a government shutdown, at present nothing could be known for sure, including how the vote on the omnibus bill would turn out if it did reach the floor for a vote.

"At this point," she said, "we don't have another bill on the floor. My preference would be for them to attach my Aug. 1 House-passed language to the bill to freeze the President's executive action program."

On Aug. 1, the House approved H.R. 5272, legislation sponsored by Blackburn that would freeze the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program prohibiting federal funds or resources from being used to adjudicate new applications under DACA. The legislation would also prevent President Obama from taking future executive actions to expand amnesty for undocumented aliens.

H.R. 5272 is one of more than 400 bills passed by the Republican-controlled House currently awaiting action in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

For a summary of the House version of the 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill, visit http://tinyurl.com/pw6fjdo.

UPDATE: At 9:42 p.m. Thursday the Associated Press reported that the $1.1 trillion bill passed by a vote of 219-206 after President Obama urged House Democrats to support the measure.

The bill must now be approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

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