Thread: Stopgap DHS funding bill fails in House

Stopgap DHS funding bill fails in House

Published February 27, 2015 FoxNews.com



NOW PLAYINGFocus on immigration in battle over DHS funding

DEVELOPING ...
A stopgap bill to keep money flowing to the Homeland Security Department past a midnight deadline failed in the House late Friday, in a surprise turn of events that again raises the possibility of a partial agency shutdown.

The bill was defeated on a 203-224 vote.
ORIGINAL STORY ...

Congress, facing an imminent partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, was preparing Friday to do what it does best: punt.
At an impasse over a long-term funding bill, a plan was swiftly emerging for lawmakers to approve a time-buying, three-week stopgap. House Republicans put the idea on the table late Thursday and are hoping to muscle it through the chamber and send it over to the Senate by the end of the day -- just making the midnight deadline to keep the money flowing to DHS.
That plan could still go sour, as many House Democrats are opposed to another short-term bridge. Indeed, House leaders called a brief recess Friday afternoon amid some difficulty lining up the votes, though the House is now back in session.
But if Speaker John Boehner can push it through, largely on Republican votes, sources say the Senate would likely approve it. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said President Obama would sign it.
"It's the best solution that we have available to us right now," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. "Nobody wants to shut down the Department of Homeland Security."
Left unresolved, however, is how Congress would fund DHS through the rest of the year and whether Republicans have any path to extract their central demand -- reversing Obama's controversial immigration executive actions.
Originally, Republicans wanted to require those actions be reversed as a condition for funding DHS. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already abandoned that effort, meeting Democrats' demands to deal with the two issues separately.
But many House Republicans still want to fight, and use the DHS budget as leverage to extract the immigration concession.
As Congress moves to pass a stopgap, the Senate on Friday approved a longer-term DHS funding bill. However, House Republicans stopped the bill in its tracks, voting instead for a so-called conference committee -- a way for lawmakers to hammer out a compromise measure.
But Senate Democrats have called this a "non-starter," and they could have the leverage to block it. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats on Friday also blocked a separate bill undoing Obama's immigration actions.
The complicated debate underscored the lingering divisions among the Republican caucus over how far to take their fight against Obama's immigration plan, which gives millions of illegal immigrants work permits and a deportation reprieve.
Some argue that with a federal judge, for now, blocking the plan from going forward, there's less urgency to use legislation to achieve the same goal. Other conservative Republicans say the legislation is necessary.
"I am not going to vote under any circumstances to fund illegal conduct," said Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. "It does not make any difference whether the funding is for three weeks, three months or a full fiscal year. If it's illegal, it's illegal."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...n-dhs-funding/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/us-senate-pa...t-30-a-317887/

House Fails to Approve Funds for Homeland Security

By ASHLEY PARKER FEB. 27, 2015



Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, called any short-term measure "a failure." CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Friday failed to pass their own proposal to fund the Department of Homeland Security, leaving lawmakers scrambling to keep the agency open just hours before money is set to run out at midnight.

The House had hoped to extend funding for three weeks in order to avert a partial shutdown of the department, but could not assemble the votes. It fell by 224 to 203.

The embarrassing defeat for House Speaker John A. Boehner and his leadership team came after the Senate had passed its own legislation in the morning to fund the department through the fiscal year.

House Republicans had hoped to pass their own counterproposal, a short-term measure fund the department for three weeks, pushing the fight over President Obama’s immigration policies into March.

RELATED COVERAGE

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  House and Senate Prepare Measures to Keep Homeland Security FundedFEB. 26, 2015
  
  
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  Senators Move to End Deadlock Over Funding of Homeland SecurityFEB. 25, 2015
  

But after a day of behind-the-scenes arm twisting and cajoling, the temporary fix collapsed during a tense vote on the House floor Friday evening. Many of the conference’s more conservative measures refused to support their leadership’s bill, and House Democrats remained largely unified, leaving Mr. Boehner without the necessary votes.


Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has promised to reverse Congress’s pattern of hurtling from crisis to crisis.CreditJ. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressAs the bill was defeated, a lawmaker from the Republican side of the chamber shouted, “Good luck!”

House Republicans are now regrouping, scrambling to rally the necessary votes — or come up with another last ditch solution — and the majority leader advised that there could be more votes later Friday evening.

The impasse over the Homeland Security agency reflects a broader fight in Congress over President Obama’s immigration policies. Republicans are trying to attach restrictions on Mr. Obama’s executive action on immigration to the funding measure.

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How a Bill Becomes a Law — Or Not

The fight over continuing to finance the Department of Homeland Security.

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But it also exposed deep rifts between House and Senate Republicans, who struggled in recent weeks to agree on a pragmatic path forward to both keep the agency running and express their displeasure with the president’s recent immigration action.

“We should have never fought this battle,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk, Republican of Illinois. “In my view, in the long run, if you are blessed with the majority, you are blessed with the power to govern. If you’re going to govern, you have to act responsibly.”

After the Republicans gained control of the Senate and increased their margins in the House in the November elections, both Mr. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, promised to reverse Congress’s pattern of hurtling from crisis to crisis, even over matters like appropriations that were once relatively routine.

But in their first big test, the Republican leaders often seemed to be working from different playbooks, at times verging on hostile, with each saying it was time for the other chamber to act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/us/senate-house-homeland-security.html

http://www.alipac.us/f12/what-happen...s-down-317898/

... And most U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services operations, including the visa program, immigrant naturalization and asylum claims, would continue — except for the E-Verify system employers use to verify workers' visas, which would pause in case of a shutdown.

Wait — so Obama's executive action on immigration, which started this mess, would still be implemented?

Yep. It turns out defunding the agency that's implementing Obama's executive action delaying deportations for millions of immigrants won't prevent the executive action from taking effect...

Thank you, US House of Representatives. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

In the end, 52 Republicans joined all but a dozen Democrats in voting against the measure, which was supposed to go to the Senate so it could be approved later Friday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest indicated Obama would sign it, even though he would still prefer a full-year clean bill of the type the Senate passed Friday morning.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congr...-bill-20150227

http://www.alipac.us/f9/congress-agr...utdown-317899/