Flailing for an exit strategy to a shutdown showdown of GOP leaders’ own making, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday offered colleagues a new plan that would still include a vote against President Obama’s deportation amnesty but surrenders the leverage of withholding homeland security funding.
“I don’t know what’s not to like about this,” Mr. McConnell told reporters at the Capitol after briefing fellow Republicans at a closed-door luncheon.
He said the vote on the $40 billion funding bill could come as soon as Democrats agree to hold it, while he hopes for a vote Friday on the bill to cancel Mr. Obama’s amnesty.
But Democrats were cool to Mr. McConnell’s solution and so were conservative Republicans, who balked at a strategy that would reduce their stance against Mr. Obama’s deportation to a show vote.
“The most potent power of Congress is the power of the purse,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, adding that lawmakers have “a duty not to fund anything that is unconstitutional or illegal, which this [executive action] is.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he wouldn’t agree to any votes until House Speaker John A. Boehner guaranteed the clean bill would get an up-or-down vote in this chamber.
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“Unless Boehner’s in on the deal, it won’t happen,” he said.
Mr. Boehner’s office has signaled approval of Mr. McConnell’s strategy for the Senate but has not indicated what the House will do.
Mr. McConnell did not pretend that the vote had a chance of undoing the executive action that Mr. Obama announced in November, which would grant legal status, work permits and Social Security numbers to as many as 4 million illegal immigrants.
Instead, he and his lieutenants pointed to a court decision last week that halted the amnesty, saying since it’s no longer in effect, Congress doesn’t need to defund it.
“With this federal court injunction in place, any money that the United States Congress appropriates for the Department of Homeland Security will not go to fund the president’s illegal executive action because it’s barred by a federal court injunction,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Texas Republican.
Last week, however, Mr. McConnell had argued the judge’s ruling undercut Democrats’ objections and should be a reason to push ahead with the bill to defund the executive actions.
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Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, called the about-face by GOP leaders “a mistake.”
“Congress is obliged to use every constitutional check and balance we have to rein in President Obama’s lawlessness, and that includes both our confirmation authority over nominees and the power of the purse,” he said.
The administration has appealed the court ruling, and has also asked the judge to stay his own injunction so amnesty applications can be processed in the meantime.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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