House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio walks to the House chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, for a procedural vote as Congress moves toward a spending bill for the Homeland Security Department hours before a shutdown was to begin. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / AP)
Leaders of the U.S. Congress start the week in the position they were in at the end of last week: They have just a few days to avert a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security with no funding solution in sight.
Republicans and Democrats traded more blame Sunday for the lack of progress to finance the agency’s operations, even as the new March 6 deadline approaches. Neither party budged from its stance on whether funds should be tied to reversing President Barack Obama’s November immigration orders, and leaders continued to snipe about whether promises were made about advancing a long-term bill.
Complicating the week’s schedule is Tuesday’s address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a threatened long-shot maneuver by some Republicans to weaken House Speaker John Boehner’s hold on his position.
Boehner said no deal has been struck with Democrats to resolve the funding standoff. The House passed the stopgap spending bill on a 357-60 vote Friday with Democratic support. Hours earlier, 52 of Boehner’s majority Republicans refused to back a three-week funding bill.
“We get in an argument over tactics from time to time,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said Sunday on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” when asked whether members of his own party were undermining efforts to find a resolution to the funding impasse.
He acknowledged Sunday that the 203-224 defeat of the three-week funding bill was difficult for him. “Friday wasn’t a whole lot of fun,” he said.
“Oh, it was just messy, and I am not into messy,” he said. “Listen, I enjoy being in a legislative body. I enjoy all the personalities. And I’ve (the House has) got a lot of ’em.”
As to whether House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, had extracted a pledge to get a vote on a measure to fund the agency through September, Boehner said “the promise I made to Ms. Pelosi is the same promise that I made to Republicans — that we would follow regular order.”
On Friday, Pelosi urged Democrats to support an extension of Homeland Security funding, saying in a letter to colleagues “your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week” for the agency.
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the No. 3 House Republican, said Sunday on “Fox News Sunday” there was no such deal.
In response to Boehner’s comments Sunday, Pelosi released a statement asserting that internal Republican Party dysfunction is the reason why such a funding agreement hasn’t been reached.
“While a trio of GOP leaders did their best on Sunday shows to shift the blame for their dangerous internal chaos, it has never been more clear that the House must take up and pass full funding of the Department of Homeland Security,” Pelosi said in the statement.
Funding for Homeland Security operations is again set to expire after Friday. Without new spending, thousands of employees will be furloughed or required to work without pay.
House Republicans want to use the Homeland Security funding bill to block Obama’s November orders that shielded about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Boehner said Sunday Republicans are unified on the main goal of stopping Obama’s “overreach” with regard to immigration.
The short extension ensures that the issue will continue to dominate a calendar that Republican leaders wanted to fill with debate over policy priorities such as job creation and curbing business regulations. Instead, Republicans are mired in an immigration debate that risks alienating Latino voters ahead of the 2016 presidential and congressional elections. Obama has threatened to veto any reversal of his orders.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a former chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, said Boehner needs to find a way to get a bill to the House floor without the divisive immigration provisions.
“There’s no doubt it will pass. … We cannot allow this small group to block it. Once … this comes to a vote, we get it behind us, we go forward, then we really, as Republicans, have to stand behind the speaker and make it clear we’re not going to allow this faction to be dominating and to be impeding what we’re trying to do,” King said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said last week that a partial shutdown of his agency would require 30,000 employees to be furloughed and 170,000 essential personnel to keep working without pay. The department includes the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Some rank-and-file House Republicans worried that Boehner may abandon their demands to block Obama’s immigration actions as part of any Homeland Security spending bill are threatening a long-shot maneuver to weaken his hold on the post.
The procedural move to declare his office “vacant,” while almost certain to fail, would further demonstrate the depth of frustration with Boehner among Republicans who have challenged his leadership before.
“The sad part is that there is a group of people here who are trying to use the Homeland Security appropriations bill to advance their crass, inside-the-Beltway, palace coup,” said Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who co-chairs a group of moderate House Republicans.
Associated Press contributed
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