The House Must Lead

by Conservative Action Alerts on June 28, 2013

ALERT: U.S. House members must ignore the Gang of Eight’s Senate passage and Secure the Borders First! Take Action & Blast Faxes to Representatives!
American Conservative,
It’s “game over” in the Senate.
Yesterday, at 4:23 PM eastern, Harry Reid forced a final vote on the Gang of Eight’s S. 744 – just a few hours after cloture was invoked – and it passed with 68 yays and 32 nays.
Despite its passage, the Gang of Eight bill remains to be a terrible, unworkable piece of legislation that defies common sense. As it is “amnesty first” bill, S. 744 stands only to compound our illegal immigration problem as it fails to secure the border first.
After the Senate vote, Sen. Ted Cruz said the following about his colleagues’ majority decision:
“Sadly, this bill won’t fix the problem with our immigration system and will only encourage more illegal immigration and human suffering.
I strongly support commonsense immigration reform that secures the border before legalization, fixes our legal immigration system, and upholds the rule of law. This bill isn’t it.”
This said, it is now clear that only the House of Representatives can lead on immigration reform legislation. House members must completely disregard the Gang of Eight’s S. 744, start over, and secure the borders first!
Take Action and blast faxes to House Members: Tell Representatives to IGNORE the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill and create workable legislation that will secure the borders first!
No “Comprehensive” Reform
The House does not need to take its “marching orders” from the Senate’s failure to properly legislate. In fact, the House has a duty to oppose such bad legislation. Realizing that the majority of the majority of Senators hadn’t even read the Corker-Hoeven amendment – which, in reality, was a 1,200-page bill swap – before passing it, is proof enough that their bill should not be trusted whatsoever.
The fact is: No member of either house of Congress should ever vote on a bill without reading and understanding every single word.
This is a primary reason that House members must refuse to take up the Gang of Eight bill – it’s simply far too large to be properly considered and debated.
What Representatives must do is craft multiple single-issue bills to be debated in broad daylight starting with border security first.
The House must reform immigration in a step-by-step fashion and force the Senate to vote on their short, straightforward remedies.
Though the “rubber stamps” in the Senate made the Gang’s backroom “voter-drive” deal a reality in their chamber, the House must do the opposite.
Despite S. 744′s passage, no immigration reform has been decided. We must demand that only “Borders First” legislation succeeds!
Take Action and blast faxes to House Members: Tell Representatives to IGNORE the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill and create workable legislation that will secure the borders first!
** Send your free messages to your Representative and Senators here.
** Use our directory to call lawmakers’ offices here.
Winning the House
After calling S. 744 “an embarrassment” and saying that “comprehensive approach” to immigration reform has been “utterly discredited.” Sen. Mike Lee said he believes the House will oppose the Gang of Eight.
“The good news is that the House appears to have learned this lesson and wants no part of it,” said Lee. “Already, the Speaker has said the Senate bill is dead on arrival – so today’s vote is largely symbolic.”
While Lee’s statement is correct – Boehner did say that he will not bring the Gang’s bill to the floor – we shouldn’t take it as a simple, permanent fact.
We know that Speaker John Boehner has several times sided with Democrats and ignored the unwritten Hastert Rule that says only bills that have the majority of the majority’s support are to be brought to the floor for a vote.
In March, remember, Boehner ignored conservatives and the majority of Republicans who offered an amendment to the Continuing Resolution that would’ve completely defunded Obamacare. Also, in the midst of the Senate’s battle against guns this spring, the Speaker said that he “fully expects” to bring the Senate gun-control legislation to a vote in the House, in spite of conservative opinion.
It’s safe to say that the majority of the House wants to secure the borders first, but it may not come easy as Speaker Boehner is only a fair-weather friend of conservatives and Republicans in his chamber.
We know that establishment politicians of both parties created the Gang of Eight and they shouldn’t be expected to easily surrender it. This is why we must demand every single member of the House to press this issue hard and make sure they do the right thing, regardless of the powers that want this bad bill to become a reality.
Take Action and blast faxes to House Members: Tell Representatives to IGNORE the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill and create workable legislation that will secure the borders first!
** Send your free messages to your Representative and Senators here.
** Use our directory to call lawmakers’ offices here.
The Cost of “Amnesty First”
Sen. Ted Cruz says the Gang’s bill “repeats the mistakes of the 1986 immigration bill; it grants amnesty first; it won’t secure the border; and it doesn’t fix our broken legal immigration system.”
Granting amnesty – or, a “pathway to citizenship” – to 11 million illegal residents would translate to trillions of dollars in costs over time, according to the Heritage Foundation.
Such an extreme measure should never be taken before ensuring that the crux of the illegal immigration problem – insecure borders – is solved, else the illegal immigrant population will grow as individuals within it are being legalized at the same time.
Amnesty’s absorption of 11 million illegals would force our already overburdened and underfunded Welfare-Entitlement State to be stretched even further.
And there are political costs, also: Rep. Michele Bachmann claims that if the Gang of Eight plan becomes law the “whole political system will change.” She says:
“[Amnesty is] President Obama’s number one political agenda item because he knows we will never again have a Republican president, ever, if amnesty goes into effect.”
Texas Rep. Steve Stockman says if amnesty passes “you can kiss [the] state of Texas goodbye (for Republicans) as well as Arizona and Florida. It will be just like what happened in California after the ’86 amnesty.”
House Members to completely ignore S. 744 and work on genuine, step-by-step solutions to fixing our immigration system. Send faxes, call lawmakers, and sign our petition.
Take Action and blast faxes to House Members: Tell Representatives to IGNORE the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill and create workable legislation that will secure the borders first!


For America,
Conservative Action Alerts
www.ConservativeActionAlerts.comP.S. Immigration reform means securing the borders first! Add your name to our petition and send a free letter to your U.S. Representative to completely ignore S. 744 and craft legislation that puts border security first - click here.
P.P.S. Also, log a call to your U.S. Representative and tell him or her to “secure the borders first!”
Take Action and blast faxes to House Members: Tell Representatives to IGNORE the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill and create workable legislation that will secure the borders first!
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