Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, said resistance from the GOP base after President Obama’s State of the Union Address led House Speaker John A. Boehner to put plans for a push to pass immigration reform on ice, and that Mr. Boehner felt it was not worth having an internal party fight over heading into the fall elections.
“This would have been tough in any case to get a majority of Republicans to support this. In Republican districts, this is not a very popular issue,” Mr. King said on CBS’s “Face Nation” Sunday. “I think nationwide, [it’s] something the Republican Party should do, but when you take it district by district, it’s hard to get a majority of Republicans to sign onto it.”
Mr. King said Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, and the GOP leadership wanted to get it done, but Mr. Obama’s State of the Union Address — in which he said he’d like to work with Congress on an array of issues but would move unilaterally if necessary — didn’t help things.
“So you start getting a real push back from the Republican base against members in these districts where there is no real strong support for immigration reform — certainly not what we would call legalization or pathway to citizenship,” Mr. King said. “So I think John Boehner just felt with everything going on this year, especially with the emphasis on Obamacare, it was not worth having an internal fight going into the election. But right now, things seem to be going the Republican way.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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