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Posts Tagged ‘house’
August 25th, 2014 at 7:06 pm
Pro-Amnesty Congressman: ‘Get Ready’ for Obama Executive Order

One of Congress’ biggest amnesty boosters is telling allies to “get ready” for a presidential announcement that could shield as many as 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), an amnesty supporter who called on fellow Hispanics to “sign up to vote and punish those who speak ill and criminalize children who come to our border,” expects to hear very soon that President Barack Obama will issue an executive order to effectively legalize half of the United States’ illegal immigrant population.

“It’s music to my ears that someone would have a source at the White House that say it’s 5 million,” Gutierrez said on MSNBC today. “Let me just say, tomorrow, the next day, and all of this week we’re getting ready.”

By “getting ready,” Gutierrez means preparing to process 5 million quasi-legal residents into semi-permanent status. The problem is, Gutierrez has no idea what those structures will look like – or how they’ll be funded – because Congress has refused to pass any type of immigration reform that includes amnesty or anything like it.

Perhaps President Obama will opt for the complex “Registered Provisional Immigrant” status outlined in the Senate Gang of Eight bill that died in the House of Representatives. After all, Gutierrez and other amnesty supporters have “urged Obama to legalize all of the illegal immigrants that would have qualified under the Senate’s amnesty bill,” reports Breitbart News. If Obama can achieve the same policy goal as Congress, why can’t he do it using the same policy means?

Besides, just because the legislative branch won’t pass a law doesn’t prohibit the executive from doing whatever he wants, right?

Today, Gutierrez may be gleeful at the prospect of Obama violating the Constitution to benefit his pet issue, but he should remember: Once you brush aside the separation-of-powers, there’s no check on tyranny. Tomorrow, you lose.

June 4th, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Boehner to Obama: All Vets on VA Wait Lists Should Get Private Option

“All veterans on waiting lists should be able to easily access care outside the VA without waiting for a potentially corrupt facility to approve their request,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) writes today in a letter to President Barack Obama. “Our veterans should not be left in limbo, relying on what your own audit acknowledges is a ‘systematic lack of integrity within some Veterans Health Administration facilities.’”

As an immediate remedy Boehner calls on Obama to support legislation coming from the House Veterans Affairs Committee that would allow “any veteran unable to obtain an appointment within 30 days the option to receive non-VA care.”

If the president and his congressional allies have a better alternative they better put it forward. Too many veterans are waiting.

November 13th, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Boehner Nixes Immigration Deal on Senate Gang’s Bill

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is pulling the plug on the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration bill.

“We’ve made it clear that we’re going to move on a common sense, step-by-step approach in terms of how we deal with immigration,” said Boehner, according to the Washington Times. “The idea that we’re going to take up a 1,300-page bill that no one had ever read, which is what the Senate did, is not going to happen in the House. And frankly, I’ll make clear we had no intention of ever going to conference on the Senate bill.”

That last line about having “no intention of ever going to conference on the Senate bill” might come as a surprise to those who remember the viability of that option prior to freshman Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) unleashing a public and private remonstrance against it.

I’m sure there were a lot of factors that went into Boehner’s decision to put the kibosh on the Senate’s version of immigration; not least of which is politics. Immigration reform splits the GOP to the advantage of Democrats. Focusing on all of Obamacare’s failures unites Republicans ahead of the critical 2014 midterm elections.

Whatever the weight given to individual factors, it’s good to see House Republicans opting for unity over division. On both issues, the conservative perspective wins.

September 23rd, 2013 at 5:31 pm
Senate Immigration Bill to Help Illegals Convicted of Other Crimes

Here’s the immigration reform version of “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”

Speaking to attendees at the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual conference, Esther Olavarria, the White House’s director of immigration reform, highlighted some provisions of the Senate’s bill that she would like the public to ignore.

Making it easier for illegal immigrants convicted of crimes to stay in the country got special attention.

In Olavarria’s telling, the Senate bill reverses a 1996 law that says any criminal conviction can serve as the basis for deportation. The new language would exempt convictions followed by a suspended sentence, meaning that deportation would not be an option if the offender gets probation instead of jail time.

Bear in mind, the conviction referred to is for a crime separate from illegally entering the country.

Thus, if passed, the Senate bill would not only excuse the foundational illegality of unlawfully entering the country, it would further protect from prosecution those who have been convicted, but not yet served jail time.

But if you haven’t heard about this controversial change in law, Olavarria explains why.

“We haven’t played [them] up because we want to be able to maintain them as we go through the legislative process,” she told the conference attendees. “The bill has a number of other important provisions that have stayed under the radar, and we’d actually like to keep them under the radar.”

That’s because the White House knows it can’t win an open and honest debate about granting illegal immigrants not one, but (at least) two free passes when it comes to breaking the law.

This subterfuge is yet another reason to scrap the Senate’s bill and start over.

H/T: The Daily Caller

September 12th, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Delay ObamaCare, Spend Savings on Sequester?

House Republican conservatives are considering an alternative to using the upcoming budget fight as an attempt to defund ObamaCare. In its place, the GOP would vote to delay all of ObamaCare for a year and use the money saved to restore budget cuts caused by the sequester, reports the Washington Examiner.

To entice Democrats, the proposal would also raise the government’s debt ceiling, which is estimated to be reached sometime in late October.

On the plus side, the one-year delay puts President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats on the defensive. After delaying the employer mandate and income eligibility requirements, it would be difficult to justify opposing the whole scale delay of a law that is turning into a “train wreck” to implement.

Shifting the money saved on ObamaCare implementation also lets Republicans take credit for restoring budget cuts, but here the plan starts to look less favorable. Conservatives want to restore funding to the military, but liberals are likely to demand restoration across the board – including budget items that Republicans would otherwise like to see shrink or eliminated.

Besides, if at the end of the year the sequester gets “paid for,” what was the point of going through all the downsizing? Angling for praise for restoring spending in a budget that doesn’t balance seems like an odd goal for fiscal conservatives.

Finally, there’s the debt ceiling issue. Between the White House, Senate Democrats and House Republican leadership there appears to be agreement that the debt ceiling should be raised. While that’s certainly the politically correct thing to do, it too seems contrary to the fiscal instincts of conservatives.

And yet, this trial balloon proposal might be attractive to House conservatives, also known as the best hope for imposing any kind of spending discipline in Washington. If this is the best they think they can do, then it means momentum inside Congress for defunding ObamaCare is dead.

If that’s true, let’s hope they can get a full and complete delay. Otherwise, capitulating on those terms will lead to more spending, more debt and more regulations. Not exactly a win for conservativsm.

August 22nd, 2013 at 5:14 pm
Rubio to House GOP: ‘Obama Will Legalize Immigrants If Senate Bill Not Passed’

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is using an interesting tactic to get House Republicans to pass his immigration reform bill – Scare them with threats of a lawless presidency.

“I believe this president will be tempted, if nothing happens in Congress, he will be tempted to issue an executive order as he did for the DREAM Act kids a year ago, where he basically legalizes 11 million people by the sign of a pen,” the presumptive 2016 presidential candidate told a Florida radio station last week.

In effect, Rubio is telling House Republicans – opponents of his pathway to citizenship plan for illegal immigrants – that unless they pass the Senate Gang of Eight’s bad bill President Barack Obama will enlarge his controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Brought to life last year via executive order, Obama directed immigration agents to put illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children at the bottom of the deportation list. The policy also makes available temporary work visas to those covered.

But Rubio, a University of Miami law school graduate and former Speaker of the Florida House, has his eyes on the wrong target.

For one thing, not even the liberal academics that provided cover for the president’s unilateral and unprecedented action think Obama has the power to defer action on every illegal immigrant.

“The justifications for DACA made clear that this is not a situation where the president can reduce overall enforcement of immigration laws. He can just redirect it in certain ways,” former principal deputy attorney general and current University of Virginia law professor David A. Martin told the Washington Post.

And even if President Obama did decide not to enforce any immigration laws, why is his lawlessness an argument against Republicans? Wouldn’t the proper response to an expanded abuse of presidential power be to oppose the president?

Yet it seems like Rubio is giving Obama a pass while preemptively blaming House Republicans for future bad acts the president may commit.

Only in a place like Washington does that kind of logic make sense. If Rubio really believes that the President of the United States won’t be constrained by the separation of powers and the rule of law, then the object of his anger should be directed at the White House, not Republicans in the House of Representatives.

August 8th, 2013 at 3:16 pm
Investigation of IRS Scandal Uncovers Links to the FEC

How often do the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Elections Commission share information about non-profit political groups?

If the question seems highly unusual that’s because it is. Ordinarily, there is no reason for the two federal agencies to communicate about a private entity, yet evidence is mounting that IRS and FEC officials had several conversations about politically conservative non-profit groups.

To recall, the IRS has the power to grant or strip a group’s non-profit status, and the FEC is the main arbiter of political speech. If there is evidence of coordination between these two agencies to discriminate against associations because of their viewpoint, a whole new level of government corruption will emerge.

To find out the truth, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is requesting “All documents and communications between or among any FEC official or employee and any IRS official or employee for the period January 1, 2008, to the present.”

If past experience with the Obama administration is any guide, House committee staff could be in for a lot of reading.

July 18th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
On Immigration, Rubio Seems to Lack Conviction

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is surprisingly mum about whether House Republicans should pass, amend or kill his signature legislative achievement this year: Comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes up to 11 million illegal immigrants before securing the border.

According to an interview with Politico, Rubio said the House GOP deserves “the time and space… to come up with their ideas about how to reform immigration – and I hope they will – but that’s up to them.” But while Rubio obviously wants to create some distance between himself and a bill that his conservative base hates, now is precisely the time to put his influence to work if he really believes that his immigration reform is the right thing to do.

As Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a co-author with Rubio on the bill says, “If he’s got some influence in the House, now is a good time to use it.”

That Rubio is refusing to gives the strong impression that much of his support for the Senate’s version of immigration reform is more about politics than policy. Now that his 2016 presidential aspirations look endangered because of his stance on immigration, the rising conservative is looking to bolster his image by talking about fiscal responsibility and social issues.

But the problem remains that his performance on immigration – for the bill when it seems to help him, against or at least ambivalent toward it when it hurts – indicates his most important criteria is whether a particular stance propels him closer to the White House.

That’s a fine way to operate if one is a paid consultant looking for any advantage to climb the ladder, but it’s the exact opposite of what people expect from a statesman. Rubio helped pass and craft the Senate’s immigration bill, so he either needs to defend it to the death or disown it for principled reasons. Enough calculating. Make a decision and own it.

June 28th, 2013 at 2:33 pm
IRS Scandal Could Net Congressional Contempt Citation

Lois Lerner impliedly waived her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a party-line vote in the House Government Oversight Committee today.

Lerner entered a brief statement declaring her innocence before invoking the Fifth Amendment during a May 14 appearance before the committee to discuss her role in the IRS scandal targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

Soon after, Lerner was placed on administrative leave from the IRS.

The resolution is the first step in a process that could result in a Contempt of Congress citation against Lerner. If so, she would be the second Obama administration political appointee to receive the highest form of censure by a congressional chamber.

The other person: Attorney General Eric Holder.

H/T: Washington Post

June 28th, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Passed in Senate, Gang’s Immigration Reform Will Die in the House

After the bipartisan back-slapping subsides, the Senators who passed the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill yesterday know one thing for sure – the House Republicans will ignore it.

In place of the ‘comprehensive’ scheme favored by the Senate, the House GOP is already making progress in passing piecemeal legislation that tackles specific immigration issues.

And, unlike the backroom deals used by the Senate Gang and its supporters, the House process is using an open and transparent committee process, reports National Review.

Last week, [House Immigration Committee Chairman Bob] Goodlatte approved two bills out of committee, an interior enforcement bill and an agricultural guest-worker program. This week, he is moving one bill to expand E-Verify nationwide and to reform the high-skill-visa system.

Breaking up a big issue like immigration reform into its constituent parts is the clearest and best way to solve problems. Focusing on specific policies and programs allows Members of Congress – and, just as importantly, the American public – to get their head around the main goal and the means to achieve it.

Kudos to the House GOP for treating the American people, and immigration reform, with the attention and respect they deserve.

June 7th, 2013 at 7:43 pm
House GOP Announces ObamaCare Messaging Group

A group of conservative House Republicans is readying an anti-ObamaCare messaging campaign to coordinate arguments against the controversial health law in the run-up to its debut in October.

The initiative aims to make criticisms of the law more mainstream.

“The goal of the House ObamaCare Accountability Project is to raise public awareness about ObamaCare’s impact on jobs, health costs and access to care. HOAP is a group of select House members who will supplement and echo the work being done by the House Committees of jurisdiction and all members of the House Republican Conference on this important issue,” a spokeswoman told Politico.

HOAP is being spearheaded by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The effort includes 25 House GOP members drawn from across the country.

As far as I can tell, there’s no website or talking points available yet, but even just an announcement is a start in the right direction. Conservatives need to find a way to turn the public’s dissatisfaction into a movement for repeal. With the media in favor of the status quo, that means a messaging unit like this – that’s very good – is needed to get the conversation moving in the right direction.

June 6th, 2013 at 1:44 pm
House GOP’s Move after Holder Misses Deadline

Readers know we’ve taken an interest in Eric Holder’s, at best, misleading testimony to Congress about his role in the James Rosen search warrant because, most likely, it’s the clearest evidence yet that the Attorney General should be removed from office.

But to find out whether Holder perjured himself, Congress needs to know all the facts. That means getting Holder to clarify his conflicting statements about whether he intended to prosecute Rosen as a criminal, or just allege the accusation as a smokescreen to get unprecedented – and unlawful – access to the Fox News reporter’s personal communications.

Holder made his misleading statement under oath on May 15. The Judiciary Committee gave him until the close of business yesterday (June 5) to clarify. With that deadline now passed, it’s up to House Republicans to make the next move. For the sake of the truth, it better be good.

June 4th, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Rubio Sending Mixed Messages on Immigration Reform

So, will he or won’t be vote for his Gang of Eight’s version of comprehensive immigration reform?

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is starting to sound like a politician who knows he miscalculated on the public’s support for a legalization first approach to fixing America’s broken immigration system.

Consider these two statements from the Florida lawmaker as quoted by The Hill:

“There will have to be improvements [to the Gang’s bill],” Rubio said [after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it without substantial changes]. “Because the good thing is the American people, the vast majority of them throughout the political spectrum, have clearly said that they are prepared to responsibly deal with those that are here illegally, but they are only willing to do so if we can take measures that ensure that this problem will never happen again in the future. And so, if we can make sure we put in place enforcement mechanisms and a guest worker program that ensures this will never happen again in the future, we’re going to have responsible immigration reform. And if we don’t have that, then we won’t have immigration reform.”

But on Monday of this week, Rubio is sounding a different tune when explaining to a constituent why reform couldn’t be piecemeal as Republicans in the House of Representatives want:

“I give you my word, that if this issue becomes one of those old-fashioned Washington issues where they start horse trading, one part of it for another part of it,” Rubio said in a video response to a constituent’s concern. “If each of these are not dealt with as separate issues even though they are dealt with in one bill, then I won’t be able to support that anymore.”

The problem with immigration though is that it is complex because it is all interwoven,” Rubio said. “It’s all related to each other. It’s literally impossible to do one part without doing the other.”

So, which is it? Is immigration reform as the Gang envisions it in need of major changes to make it acceptable to the House, or is it a done deal that can’t be amended?

I suspect the answer for Rubio is both. The Gang’s bill as-is does not secure the border first, and therefore – among many other serious problems – will be dead on arrival when it hits the House, as it should be. The problem for Rubio, though, is that he is one of the Gang members, making him a co-author of everything that’s in the bill.  To walk away from it now, without any big changes, would indicate that his real problem with the bill is that it’s not popular. What conservatives want instead is for him to oppose it because, as written, it’s wrong on the merits.

Personally, I like Marco Rubio and hope he can find an honorable way to disassociate himself from the Gang of Eight, so that he can be a Senate champion for immigration reform that puts security and enforcement before amnesty.

It’ll be tough, but it’s worth the effort.

April 26th, 2013 at 1:12 pm
House GOP to Make Immigration Reform Intelligible

The Los Angeles Times has a good piece outlining how House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), a former immigration attorney whose committee has jurisdiction over immigration laws, is planning to contribute to the reform debate begun by the Senate’s Gang of Eight proposal.

In contrast to the Gang’s sprawling 844 pages, Goodlatte is opting for much smaller pieces of legislation that deal with specific issues, such as a guest worker program, border security, and expanding use of E-Verify among employers.

Goodlatte’s process also has another feature that commends it – education for deliberation.

“At the same time, however, the House bills could provide an important educational exercise for many newer GOP lawmakers as they learn the complexities of the immigration debate. Many Republicans represent congressional districts that have very small Latino or immigrant populations, leaving them unfamiliar with the issue. Republican leaders, however, believe that passing immigration reform legislation is vital to their future electoral strategy of attracting Latino voters.

“Goodlatte and others have been conducting study sessions attended by 100 Republican lawmakers to bring them up to speed on immigration issues.”

A big part of Paul Ryan’s popularity is derived from his emphasis on explaining how the current federal system works, where it needs to be fixed, and what solutions will fix the problems. Just like Ryan, Goodlatte seems to realize that Members of Congress, and the public too, will benefit from getting more time, more information, and more debate about how to fix our broken immigration system.

Besides, as ObamaCare has shown, there’s no virtue in “comprehensive” reform if its parts are unintelligible and unworkable. Better to get the policy right the first time.

April 18th, 2013 at 6:51 pm
House GOP to Follow ‘Regular Order’ on Immigration Bill

Robert Costa says that if the Senate passes the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, the House of Representatives stands ready to put the brakes on the latest piece of “must pass” legislation. Their mechanism: Regulator order.

“Regular order” allows House Republicans to dictate the pace of legislation and makes “grand bargains” of any sort harder to pass. Consider immigration. Several sources close to the leadership say that even if the Senate passes something on immigration, the bill will be immediately sent to the committees, and then either sent back to the Senate with changes, or rewritten in a bicameral conference committee. This means that the chance of the Senate’s Gang of Eight bill coming to the House floor, as is , is nearly non-existent. House Republicans would first have to mull it, schedule hearings, and then tinker with its legislative language .

That tweaking process could take months, which is just fine with many Republicans, who’d like the public to have as much time as possible to chew over the controversial elements of Obama’s prized bills. The caucus consensus is: The more time Congress takes to consider a bill, the more time the public has to sour on its components.

Unlike ObamaCare where Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority rubberstamped the Senate’s rewrite of the nation’s health insurance market, House Republicans want to make sure they know exactly what’s in the Gang’s immigration bill before voting on it.

If necessary, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is even floating the idea of breaking the Gang’s carefully balanced 1,500 page bill into separate pieces. That way, the most popular measures – such as enhanced border security measures – would likely become law, leaving less desirous elements out until supporters can figure out a way to sell them to the American people.

For a caucus that runs only one-half of one branch of government, regular order sounds like a good strategy to employ.

March 21st, 2013 at 8:54 pm
House Passes Ryan Budget 3.0

It’s a busy week on Capitol Hill for votes on the federal budget. Earlier today, House Republicans passed the third iteration of Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity plan, 221-207.

In past years, House passage of Ryan’s plan would be the first, and last, serious congressional action on the federal budget, since Senate Democrats refused to support President Barack Obama’s proposal or submit one of their own.

But not this year. Tomorrow, Senate Democrats will begin debate on their first budget outline in four years. As an added twist, the Democrats will offer amendments that resemble Ryan’s plan to see if Senate Republicans will go on the record to support it.

Voting will likely stretch into the wee hours of Saturday morning before Congress adjourns for a two week recess.

Politics aside, the Miami Herald shows just how far apart the sides are from a bipartisan resolution:

Total spending

Senate Democrats: $46.5 trillion

House Republicans: $41.7 trillion

Total revenue

Senate Democrats: $41.2 trillion

House Republicans: $40.2 trillion

10-year deficit

Senate Democrats: $5.4 trillion

House Republicans: $1.4 trillion

National debt at end of 2023

Senate Democrats: $24.4 trillion

House Republicans: $20.3 trillion

Social Security

Senate Democrats: $11.3 trillion

House Republicans: $11.3 trillion

Medicare

Senate Democrats: $6.8 trillion

House Republicans: $6.7 trillion

Health, including Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

Senate Democrats: $6.6 trillion

House Republicans: $4.0 trillion

Check out the entire list here.

November 28th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Party Polarization on Display in U.S. House

Tony Lee over at Breitbart.com highlights some interesting divergences between the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Wednesday said to “take a good look when the House convenes after this next Congress is sworn in” to see that the Republican party has gotten “white and more male,” while Democrats are “majority minority and female.”

But a University of Minnesota study found that when the 113th Congress convenes, a whopping 29.4% (59 of 201) of Democrats in the House will hail from California (38 members) and New  York (21 members).

As any number of post-election analyses has shown, liberals have been very successful at defining politics in terms of gender and ethnic identities.  What is striking about the Minnesota study is how much those identities – and the ideology of government activism that supports them – are anchored in America’s two most populous coastal states.

Remember this reality the next time you hear an MSNBC talking head decry the Southern hegemony in the GOP.  As always, the parties are defined by powerbases that offer a glimpse into what each group’s policy goals might look like if the candidates promoting them are successful at the ballot box.

The Democratic Party is becoming increasingly defined by high-tax, high-spending states like California and New York.  Like European socialism, that model isn’t sustainable.  It remains to be seen if a Southern-oriented conservative can articulate not only the reasons to reject a statist future, but also the rational benefits of limited government.