The House failed to pass the Farm bill on Friday, featuring opposition from the Freedom Caucus after they urged Republican leadership to bring the President Donald Trump-endorsed Goodlatte immigration bill to the floor for a vote.
The House failed to pass the Farm bill 198-213 featuring mostly Republican support, little Democrat support, as well as staunch opposition from conservatives in the Freedom Caucus.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) told reporters on Thursday that they will withhold their vote for the Farm bill until they receive a firm date for the President Donald Trump-endorsed-Goodlatte immigration bill, which would end chain migration, eliminate the diversity lottery program, fund the southern border wall, and offer renewable work permits for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) illegal aliens.
The White House released a statement on Friday expressing disappointment that the Farm bill failed, saying:
President Donald J. Trump is disappointed in the result of today’s vote in the House of Representatives on the Farm bill, and hopes the House can resolve any remaining issues in order to achieve strong work requirements and support our Nation’s agricultural community. The Administration underscores the need to bring certainty to our farmers and ranchers and to the many Americans receiving food assistance, and will continue to work with Congress to pass a Farm bill on time.
The battle over DACA amnesty has heated back up this week with twenty-two establishment Republicans signing a discharge petition to force a House floor vote on an illegal alien amnesty bill. If 25 Republicans and 193 Democrats sign the petition, the bipartisan coalition can force a House vote on amnesty legislation. The House Freedom Caucus opposes the amnesty immigration bill but hopes to get a floor vote on the President Trump-endorsed Goodlatte immigration bill.
House Republican leadership promised the Freedom Caucus that they would vote on the Goodlatte immigration bill in exchange for their support for a stop-gap spending bill in January.
Meadows said after a House Freedom Caucus meeting on Thursday afternoon:
I’ve called [House] leadership from in there and expressed that our concern is that we continue to talk about immigration and we obviously do not agree with some of our moderate colleagues on the discharge petition to deal with immigration, however, we agree that we need to deal with it. We were promised many, many months ago that we would vote on Goodlatte. We think that it’s important that we have a vote on Goodlatte and at this point, we’re not able to convince any of our members to go from no to yes on the Farm bill and so we will have further discussions leadership, but at this point, there is no deal.
Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Thursday that he and other conservatives continue to wait for Speaker Paul Ryan to stop the illegal alien discharge petition.
Reporters suggested that Freedom Caucus Chairman Meadows received a confirmation from House leadership on Friday morning on a vote for the Goodlatte immigration bill.
Meadows reportedly said, “We now have a firm date for a vote on the Goodlatte bill.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.