And Again

28 January 2015

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Boehner Pulls Immigration Bill from House Floor

If one needed further proof that the new Congress is an ill-organized mob, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) had to pull an immigration bill from the floor of the chamber today because he didn't have the votes to pass it. The Republican leadership tried to blame the move on the bad weather in New England, but they have not rescheduled the vote. It appears that the House GOP is not as centrist as many thought.

This particular bill is now dead. TheHill.com reported, "A day after pulling a House border security bill drafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) from a planned floor vote, GOP leaders said McCaul and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) would work together to create a new, tougher border bill."

Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies told McClatchy that weather was a factor in the bill's fate, but "The more important factor is this bill is not satisfactory for too many people in the Republican conference. (House Speaker John Boehner) has to come up with a Plan B to unify his conference going forward."

Mr. Boehner has picked a figleaf for himself and the leadership of the House. He "announced at a morning GOP conference meeting that the House would sue the administration for giving de facto legal status to millions of illegal immigrants without congressional approval." Suing the president makes the troglodyte right happy, and it gives the appearance of actually addressing the issue. Of course, no court in the land will get in between the legislative and executive branches.

The problem is that the Republican Party, and the House GOP caucus in particular, doesn't know what to do about immigration. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans want immigration so as to keep wages down. The social conservatives don't want immigration because immigrants without exception are foreigners. The crack has been papered over with "border security," but no border is 100% secure (people do get out of North Korea, after all). Insisting on securing the border first merely excuses the party from undertaking any further action or developing any further ideas.

In the run up to last November's election, a great many pundits were of the opinion that Mr. Boehner would be freed up from the dictates of the far right after securing more seats, presumably in moderate, swing districts. With two bills withdrawn from the floor of the House in just a few days (the speaker pulled an anti-abortion bill that also wasn't going to pass last week), that hypothesis is far from proved. Indeed, it would seem that the far right takes the view that it has a mandate to return America to the '50s, the 1850s.

This journal has long maintained that the next two years will resemble the Ford administration and government by veto -- one party holding large majorities in both houses of Congress while the other party holds the White House. However, no analogy is perfect, and this one breaks down when one considers the composition of the majority in the House. Sometimes, it is hard to tell if there are two or three parties represented there. The Tea Party acts more like a coalition partner than as a faction within the GOP.

President Obama could rival Mr. Ford's record of 66 vetoes in just two years, but that would require the Congress to pass at least 66 bills. On current form, one doubts whether that can happen.

© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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