Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claimed Friday that House Republicans are only seeking temporary funding for the Department of Homeland Security to avoid embarrassment during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US.
The House Minority Leader said at a press briefing, in response to a reporter’s question, that the only possible political benefit to Republicans she can see of quickly passing a continuing resolution on keeping DHS running for three weeks is to ensure that “government is open, and not closed” during Netanyahu’s visit.
Funding for the agency is set to run out at midnight in the absence of Congressional action, after Republicans moved to withhold long-term financing from it late last year. Conservatives are using the issue as a means of opposing President Obama’s executive order on immigration, and have proposed the stop-gap measure so they can continue to do so without shutting down DHS.
Netanyahu’s speech is also a contentious partisan issue in Washington. He was invited in January by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) to address a March 3 joint session of Congress on the alleged dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Many Democrats see the invitation as a move by Boehner to undermine the President’s ability to make foreign policy, and a move by both Boehner and Netanyahu to bring into disrepute the multilateral nuclear negotiations going on between the Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—a move that would increase the likelihood of war between the United States and Iran. As The Sentinel has noted, Netanyahu has a long history of making inaccurate pronouncements about Iran’s nuclear program.
Pelosi argued that Congress should grant DHS longer-term funding so it needn’t grapple with planning uncertainties.
On Friday, the Senate passed a bill that would fund the agency until the end of September. Boehner has called for a three-week extension that would give the two chambers time to hammer out differences in a conference committee.
But Pelosi rejected that possibility, saying that right-wing “anti-immigration measures” are not up for debate, and that House Republicans should emulate their counterparts in the Senate.
When asked what she would do if she were Boehner, she said that he could put both the Senate-passed bill and a temporary funding bill to a vote in order to give his rank-and-file a chance to have their say on both matters.
“It’s so elementary. It doesn’t take much to know how to legislate,” she said, also describing Republicans’ actions as “amateur hour to the nth degree.”
Legislators on the far-right have claimed that President Obama’s executive order–one that defers deportation for millions of undocumented migrants–is illegal and want to shutdown non-essential immigration enforcement within DHS as a result.
Most Democrats have said it is fundamentally no different from past executive orders issued by Presidents from both parties, and that it represents a reasonable use of the President’s ability to set federal prosecutorial priorities.
More moderate Republicans have expressed their displeasure with the order, but have said that Congress should let the judicial branch rule on its legality.
Two Senate Democrats—Sens. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)–are siding with Republicans who think the President is abusing his authority, but they aren’t keen on withholding any money from DHS.
If the anti-executive order caucus in the Senate appears to have enough votes to invoke cloture, a bill that would only withhold money from the President’s action could soon pass the Senate–though it would almost certainly have to gain enough support to override a Presidential veto to have any lasting significance.
If the House does only approve of 21 days worth of funding for DHS, it is likely that Senate Democrats will hold their noses and carry it to passage.
“Obviously we’re not going to shut down the government and if that’s the only choice we’re given, as it looks now, then we’ll support it, but reluctantly,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday.
