Let the House Work Its Will on Full-Funding DHS Bill
After Republicans nearly shut down the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, a seven-day continuing resolution is in place to give Congress time to pass legislation funding DHS for the entire fiscal year. The Senate’s clean, bipartisan funding bill would pass the House overwhelmingly, and it would give DHS the resources it needs to adequately plan ahead and protect our country. Failure to let the House work its will on this bill would risk shutting down DHS and continue the uncertainty DHS and its employees have faced for the past several weeks as we have approached the funding deadline.
Republicans in the House are urging their leaders to stop playing games with our national security and instead bring the Senate’s clean, full-funding bill to the Floor:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA): “I prefer to be in the arena voting than trying to placate a small group of phony conservative Members who have no credible policy…” [AP, 3/2/15]
Former Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King (R-NY): "There's an element within our party — there's a wing within the Congress — which is absolutely irresponsible. They have no concept of reality… For these people to be threatening to defund the Department of Homeland Security at a time when our threat streams have never been greater at any time since 9/11, it's absolutely irresponsible… I said the other night at the Republican meeting, that they [are] all right self-righteous and delusional. And they just don't realize what's happening. We're talking about maybe 40 or 50 people at most, out of a caucus of 247, out of a Congress of 435. We cannot allow such a small group to be dominating and controlling what happens in the United States Congress, especially at a time when we're confronting terrorism.” [The Hill, 3/1/15]
House Appropriations MilConVA Subcommittee Chairman Charlie Dent (R-PA): “I think a lot of people around here have to get serious about governing… It's time for all these D.C. games to end, all these palace coups or whatever the hell is going on around here, has to end, and we have to get down to the business of governing. This is about protecting the country right now… We're living in a time of enhanced, increased terror activity around North America and around the world. We need to get on with the business of funding Homeland Security.” [The Hill, 2/27/15]
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA): “There's a clear majority in the Senate and the House to pass this legislation.” [CNN, 2/25/15]
House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman John Carter (R-TX): “It's a good bill.” [The Hill, 2/25/15]
Editorial Boards continue to criticize the dysfunction characterized by House Republican leaders’ decision to pander to the far-right wing of their party instead of taking responsible action to fund DHS for the entire year:
Wall Street Journal Editorial: “A majority in Congress is a terrible thing to waste, but only two months into their largest majority since the 1920s Republicans are well on the way. Their latest mental breakdown is over their attempt to overturn President Obama’s order ending deportations for some five million illegal immigrants. Once again the fight comes down to recognizing political reality, or marching off a cliff to almost certain failure… On Friday the House and Senate voted to fund DHS, but only for a week and only with the help of Democrats. Speaker John Boehner ’s plan to fund the department for three weeks came crashing down when 52 Republicans revolted…So the GOP will now consume itself in more recriminations as it squanders more of its first 100 days… The smart play now would be for Republicans to fund DHS and move on to more promising policy ground including the budget… Miracles do happen, but in every previous shutdown the voters blamed Republicans more than Mr. Obama. And if there is a terror attack, good luck explaining that Congress isn’t to blame because those DHS workers were supposed to be on the job even if they weren’t being paid… Mr. Boehner has made mistakes, one of which is bending too much to the shutdown caucus… [T]hen start to impose some order and discipline and advance the conservative cause rather than self-defeating rebellion.” [3/1/15]
Washington Post: “FACED WITH an impending debacle — the suspension of funding for the Department of Homeland Security and its 240,000 employees — the Senate did the sensible thing, voting to keep the department solvent through the remainder of the fiscal year. Then the House of Representatives, where dyspepsia has displaced deliberation as an organizing principle, threw common sense to the winds. What should have been routine disintegrated into crisis Friday evening because the Republican right flank in the House prefers confrontation — in this case over President Obama’s immigration policies — to compromise... Republican rage over the Mr. Obama’s immigration stance is so out of control that hard-liners would rather subvert key government security agencies under DHS, by attaching poison-pill amendments to kill the president’s policies, than allow the courts to adjudicate the matter. The House has become an embarrassing spectacle, and the promises of Republican leaders in both houses to govern without hop-scotching from crisis to crisis have been shredded… But it is reckless in the extreme to wallow in brinkmanship and imperil a key department of government rather than allow the courts to settle the [immigration] dispute. And it is certainly not what the American people want, expect or deserve from their lawmakers… If House Republicans so dislike Mr. Obama’s immigration policy, they have an option that is more responsible and more traditional than forcing a partial government shutdown. They can, as the Senate did in 2013, enact legislation to address the central problem of 11 million undocumented immigrants… It is their failure to do so that has sunk Congress to its current depths.” [2/28/15]
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