American voters showed strong opposition in the 2014 midterm elections to President Obama’s amnesty program for illegal aliens, but it seems only a few in Washington got the message.
One who heard the voters was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who said Wednesday the November election was a “referendum on executive amnesty, and the American people overwhelmingly oppose” it.
He is calling on GOP members of Congress to “use every tool at our disposal – our constitutional checks and balances – to stop President Obama’s amnesty.” He specifically cited the “power of the purse.”
However, in Washington, according to Hot Air.com, only two senators, Mike Lee and David Vitter, wanted to discuss the issue at a recent meeting of Senate Republican.
“That’s catnip to grassroots righties who are convinced, not without reason, that [House Speaker John] Boehner and [soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell would rather cave on executive amnesty than risk alienating Latinos by going to war with Obama over it,” the HotAir.com commentary said.
At issue is the drive by conservatives to confront immediately Obama’s amnesty plan by defunding it, as the government money spigot is expected to be kept open past a Dec. 11 legislative deadline.
Others say it’s a fight better left for later, when the GOP runs the Senate.
“The Senate should use its constitutional authority to halt confirmations for non-national security positions, until the president stops this illegal amnesty,” exhorted Cruz. “And both House should use the power of the purse, which the framers understood to be the most potent tool Congress has to rein in an out-of-control executive.”
He noted there are Senate Democrats who also have “expressed concerns” about executive amnesty, including North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who said, “I’m disappointed the president decided to use executive action at this time on this issue, as it could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the new Senate before it has even started.”
Voters haven’t changed their opinion in the few weeks since the election.
A Quinnipiac poll from just days ago said more than one third of Americans want illegal immigrants forced out of the U.S. About 11 percent say they should stay but be denied U.S. citizenship.
The poll found 48 percent say the illegals should stay, with a pathway to citizenship. But the figure was a drop of nearly 10 percentage points from just two weeks ago, “the lowest this number has been.”
It was Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who got right to the point, declaring in National Review that House Republicans are getting very close to breaking their campaign commitment to battle amnesty.
Legislative language proposed to address the problem, he said, “fails” to meet what Republicans had been promising.
“The executive amnesty language is substantially weaker than the language the House adopted this summer, and does not reject the central tenets of the president’s plan: work permits, Social Security and Medicare to 5 million illegal immigrants – reducing wages, jobs and benefits for Americans,” he said in the report.
After this week’s House Republican conference meeting, the report said, he worried that the House will fail to take a straightforward approach: Just tell Obama the program won’t happen.
“Congress must respond to the president’s unlawful action by funding the government but not funding illegal amnesty,” he said in the report. “This is a perfectly sound and routine application of congressional authority. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reports that last year’s omnibus spending bill included 16 such funding restrictions on fee-based programs.”
The Hot Air commentary noted the dilemma facing Washington leadership, especially in the U.S. House.
Boehner, the opinion piece said, needs to satisfy conservatives in the House or he’ll lose their support. And if he pleases conservatives, doing what American voters expressed in the midterms, he runs the risk of raising opposition from Democrat Harry Reid and the Democrat majority in the Senate, who won’t leave power until January.
And a plan for funding the government is needed over the next week-and-a-half, with the threat of another shutdown looming.
The result very well could be a short-term funding program now, with a GOP legislative proposal after the first of the year, that would be supported by GOP leaders acceptable to Obama without “infuriating his base.”
“The face-saving move for both sides is to resolve the standoff by passing a mutually agreeable immigration bill or series of bills that would override Obama’s order. You trust [Boehner and Mitchell] to drive a hard, border-enforcin’ bargain on that, don’t you?” Hot Air asked.
Cruz likened the fight to something out of history.
“We fought a bloody revolution to free ourselves from monarchs,” he said Wednesday.
At Talking Points Memo, Sahil Kapur outlined the change of attitude in those who were breathing flames over Obama’s amnesty just months to now wanting to put off the fight for later.
There, Boehner was quoted saying, “Frankly, we have limited options, limited ability to deal with it directly.”
At the other end of the spectrum, Vitter said Wednesday that sending a bill to the Senate “without first making at attempt to include defund language is telling the American people that you support Obama’s executive amnesty.”
Meanwhile, a Fox News report said mayors of major cities already have made plans to meet to agree on the implementation of Obama’s plans.
“While we continue to urge Congress to enact comprehensive and long-lasting reform, the president’s actions will help many immigrants gain the opportunities, skills and status to reach their fullest potential, which will help America’s cities prosper,” said a statement from Cities United for Immigration Action.
