Why do we vote for these guys when they tend to do exactly what we do not want them to do?
(The Hill) House Republican leaders are scrambling to stop an effort by rank-and-file members to force votes on immigration, with lawmakers openly defying their calls to stand down.
Centrist Reps. Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Jeff Denham (Calif.) and Will Hurd (Texas), all Republicans facing tough reelection races, introduced a discharge petition on Wednesday morning to trigger a series of immigration votes. Discharge petitions are traditionally seen as a serious affront to leadership, making members reluctant to sign on.
Yet the effort quickly caught fire, gaining new supporters throughout the day. By press time, at least 17 GOP lawmakers had endorsed the petition, just eight short of the 25 Republican votes that would be needed if every Democrat also backed it.
In case these “centrist” Republicans missed it, Dreamers cannot vote for them. And this kind of thing would give Democrats a win. House leadership would prefer the Goodlatte/McCaul bill, which would give legal status in exchange for tough enforcement measures, but, there enough Republican sponsors.
There are whole bunch of arcane rules to discharge petitions, which end with what’s called Queen Of The Hill rule, meaning the House would vote on a series of legislative proposals, including one of Paul Ryan’s choice
The Queen of the Hill rule that the GOP lawmakers have been pursuing would have the House choose between the hard-line proposal from Goodlatte; the DREAM Act, a proposal that would give a path to citizenship to 1.8 million Dreamers; the USA Act, a measure that would pair the Dream Act with $25 billion in border security funding; and Ryan’s proposal.
You can bet Democrats would vote in full block for the DREAM Act, and oppose the others. The USA Act is simply a GOP version that would give amnesty in exchange for a promise of Doing Something. Either one would be a win for Democrats who love to codify illegal activity as being just fine. How about just enforcing existing law? So many of these so-called Dreamers could have gone through regular legal avenues to apply for citizenship or permanent legal status.
It’s long past time for some Republicans to stop cozying up to Democratic Party beliefs.
And we have this old fart
John McCain warns that Republicans are on wrong side of immigration debate
We’re on the wrong side of enforcing federal law? There’s also a story that McCain states that he gave Comey the Steele dossier and is urging the Senate to reject Haspel for CIA. These are the kinds of things that kept millions of Republicans home in 2008, because they didn’t trust this old fart. He seems to be going scorched earth in his final days.
