Senate Democrats put Congress on hold for a second time Wednesday, Feb. 4, blocking a Republican bill that would finance the Department of Homeland Security along with rollbacks of President Barack Obama’s executive immigration policies.
The vote set up an urgent confrontation over the department, which will see its funding run out by the end of the month. There seemed to be little indication that Congress was any closer to a funding solution as the Feb. 27 deadline approaches.
The vote in the Senate was 53 to 47, similar to the previous day’s vote (51 to 48) on another Homeland bill, and well short of the 60 votes needed to open debate on the measure already passed in the House of Representatives.
The bill would pay for the Homeland department through Sept. 30, the end of the current budget year, and undo Obama’s executive actions limiting deportations for at least 5 million undocumented immigrants, including children, in the US.
Democrats have said the action was unacceptable, and that the outcome would be the same unless the contested language on immigration was removed. President Obama has already promised to veto any legislation that would reverse his directives on immigration.
The showdown over the $40 billion measure is most likely the first of many, as Democrats have turned to procedural moves to stop votes as much as Republicans tried to block the bill from reaching the Senate floor.
“If they’re going to dig their heels in and say, ‘We’re going to refuse to fund the Department of Homeland Security,’ I think they’re going to be held accountable for that,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican.
“Democracy doesn’t work if you don’t debate,” said Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
Congressional Republicans have found themselves scrambling to fund the agency before it runs out of money, while also placating their most conservative members, who believe the president has overstepped his constitutional authority. They argue that the Homeland Security bill is their best leverage to fighting back.
“Is that the definition of insanity, voting on the same bill over and over again?” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to reporters.
“At a time when the world is united in trying to send a strong signal about confronting ISIS and defeating ISIS, I think putting veto bait in the funding for homeland security is a very bad idea,” pointed out Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
House speaker John Boehner told his conference last week that he was taking the first step toward possible litigation against Obama’s executive actions—a move that could help provide the necessary cover to pass a “clean” funding bill for the agency.
Obama countered the GOP by hosting an Oval Office meeting with a half-dozen young immigrants protected by his existing policies, and pointing out that their legislation would subject these visitors to eventual deportation. After the meeting, he accused Republicans of ignoring the “human consequences” of their legislation, repeating his threat to veto the bill if it reached his desk.
“There is no logic to that position,” the President said regarding efforts to link the Homeland money to reversing his immigration action. “Why would you cut off your nose to spite your face by defunding the very operations that are involved in making sure we have strong border security?”
“The notion that we would risk the effectiveness of the [Homeland] department that is charged with preventing terrorism, controlling our borders, making sure that the American people are safe, makes absolutely no sense,” Obama continued.
In the new era of divided government, most agreed that the GOP-led Congress would still find a way to approve the funding and possibly extend the short-term February deadline before coming up with a final deal.
With Democrats refusing to even debate the legislation unless all the immigration language was removed, it remained unclear whether the GOP measure would shift the debate. With three weeks left before the deadline, several conservatives have said they would stick with Plan A, trying to split up the bill.
Another procedural vote in the Senate is expected later in the week.
(With reports from New York Times, Associated Press)
