The hard part is Thune sent the Senate off on a two week break from D.C. I mean, is he trying to lose the mid-terms?
House GOP rejects Senate-passed DHS bill, proposes stopgap
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund much of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but not immigration enforcement, instead proposing a stopgap to fund the entire department for eight weeks.
The move amounts to a stunning rebuke of the upper chamber by GOP leaders — and extends the length of what is already the longest partial government shutdown in history in its 42nd day.
“This gambit that was done last night is a joke. I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill,” Johnson said, going on to read the Senate-passed bill language that provides zero dollars for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border security operations.
“We’re not doing that,” Johnson said. “And it is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at three o’clock in the morning.”
Johnson said he intended to hold a vote “as soon as possible” on a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the entirety of DHS through May 22. Such a bill will mark the fourth time that the House has passed funding for the full department.
Of course, it’s hard for that CR to go anywhere even if the Senate was still in D.C.
House GOP leaders were also outraged at the Senate deal. Johnson was visibly frustrated in comments to reporters as he slammed the Senate GOP bill, putting him at odds with his counterpart in the upper chamber, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” Johnson said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House.”
Thune is the majority leader, right? If the situation was reversed do you think that Schumer would have allowed this? Or would he have found a way to get it done? Hell, Schumer crowed about the GOP caving.
The bill funding much of DHS also passed the Senate by unanimous consent, underlining its broad support, even as Johnson on Friday sought to put the blame on Senate Democrats.
So, they didn’t actually vote? Put themselves on the record specifically? Huh.
