Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling on rank-and-file Senate Democrats to break free from the clutches of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, vote their conscience and stop filibustering a House-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill.
“This ruling underscores what the President has already acknowledged publicly 22 times: He doesn’t have the authority to take the kinds of actions he once referred to as ‘ignoring the law’ and ‘unwise and unfair.’ Senate Democrats–especially those who’ve voiced opposition to the President’s executive overreach—should end their partisan filibuster of Department of Homeland Security funding,” McConnell says.
Senate Republican conference chairman Sen. John Thune (R-SD) echoed McConnell in calling for the Democrats to lay down their arms on the House-passed DHS funding bill that blocks taxpayer dollars from being used on the now-suspended executive amnesty.
“The U.S. District Court judge in Texas is raising the same legal concerns the president himself raised 22 times: he does not have the authority to take this immigration executive action,” Thune said. “I am glad the court agreed. As this case makes its way through the legal process, Senate Democrats have a responsibility to drop their filibuster of the House-passed DHS funding bill.”
Conservatives are also calling on Senate Republican leaders to force the Democrats to drop their blockade.
“The House has acted and voted to stop Obama’s lawlessness,” ForAmerica chairman Brent Bozell said in a statement.
Now 26 states have come together against executive amnesty and a judge has temporarily blocked the president’s illegal actions. Mitch McConnell, what are you waiting for? No more dithering, no more lame excuses. It’s time for the Senate to act. The courts agree the President overstepped his authority. So does the House. So do the American people, overwhelmingly. It would be not just irresponsible but disgraceful for the Senate to fund his unconstitutional actions. Senator McConnell, you and your fellow Republicans pledged, over and over, that you would stop President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty. Republicans proclaimed it from the rooftops by running more than 10,000 television ads against amnesty from October 1st through Election Day. The public rewarded you with an emphatic victory. Enough said.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told Breitbart News that it’s incumbent upon Congress to withhold taxpayer funding from the unconstitutional action by the president.
“Judge Hanen’s ruling highlights what most Americans and even many members of Congress understand: that Obama’s unilateral amnesty is no more legal than aiding and abetting any other criminal activity,” Fitton said in an emailed statement. “Now there is no excuse for any politician on the Hill to fund this illicit amnesty. The court’s ruling confirms concerns first raised by Judicial Watch last week that the Obama administration’s misuse of tax dollars to fund this illegal amnesty program violates the Anti-Deficiency Act, which carries potential criminal and civil sanctions.”
National Review columnist Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, argued in his column too that it’s necessary that Congress use the power of the purse now to finish off Obama’s amnesty.
“The proper constitutional way to check the president’s executive order is for Congress to deny the funding needed to implement it,” McCarthy wrote in a piece questioning whether the Fifth U.S. Circuit of Appeals would either uphold or block the injunction against Obama’s executive amnesty.
That is what Republicans in the House have done, by fully funding the lawful activities of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but denying the funding for the unlawful executive amnesty. Democrats are blocking that legislation in the Senate, in the hope that, as the budget deadline approaches, the pro-Obama press (with regrettable help from George Will and Senator John McCain, among others) will convince the country that it is somehow the Republicans who are “shutting down” DHS.
Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said, too, that it’s time for the Senate Democrats to drop their obstruction.
“We commend Judge Hanen for his ruling, which restores the rule of law to America’s immigration system, and we thank the 26 attorneys general for bringing the case,” Martin said in a statement. “The ruling also points out the lawless, overreaching nature of President Obama’s actions. We’re hopeful this will be a wakeup call to Senate Democrats, and that they will allow a vote on funding for critical DHS funding as soon as they return from the recess.”
Conservative Review senior editor Daniel Horowitz concurred.
“At its core, the House bill is the cleanest of clean funding bills. Calling its makeup anything else but clean is a boldfaced lie,” Horowitz wrote on Tuesday morning.
It funds everything in Homeland Security except for the actions that never passed Congress. There is no reason to drop the defunding provision. The onus is on Democrats in the Senate to pass this clean funding bill pending the outcome of the court case. The fact that they are threatening to shut down the entire department in order to fund something a federal judge just said actively thwarts the will of Congress, is on their shoulders.
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