WASHINGTON – For years now Congress has been operating in a manner that closely resembles the old joke first voiced by the great Mark Twain – everyone complains about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it.
Congress has proved exceptional over the past six years at pointing at the very severe problems facing the nation and then setting them aside amid rancor and belligerence. Perhaps no one issue represents the incompetence on display in Washington, D.C., more than immigration, which has been lying around like roadkill for years and years.
President Obama, in 2012 and again last year, tried to do something about it through executive orders. Now some in Congress are trying to kill even that, expressing a willingness to close a key governmental agency to maintain a status quo that everyone agrees is unsustainable.
Republican strategy for dealing with this particular immigration issue was curious – and that’s a kind characterization – in the first place. Rather than get down to cases and develop a plan distasteful but acceptable to most of those involved to supersede the president’s initiatives, they decided to hold the budget for the Department of Homeland Security hostage.
Perhaps no one issue represents the incompetence on display in Washington, D.C., more than immigration, which has been lying around like roadkill for years and years.
That strategy – again, kind – is problematic from a number of perspectives. First, it further adds to the destructive narrative that Congress simply is incapable of grappling with the large issues of the day. President Obama was clear when he signed his executive orders – if Congress disapproves, they should pass legislation implementing a different route.
Good luck with that.
The other issue is the rather cavalier attitude the GOP is taking toward the Department of Homeland Security at a time when the agency is dealing with potential terrorists threats. It makes the party appear dismissive of the agency’s duties and their cause doesn’t benefit from the recent death of a young American woman, Kayla Mueller, while she was in the hands of the Islamic State.
House Republicans, as is their wont, adopted legislation in January that provides $40 billion for Department of Homeland Security operations but it also contained provisos defunding the executive orders that provided work permits to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants and a program that suspended deportation of those brought to the U.S. as children.
Of course there was nothing in the legislation addressing the status of all 11 million illegal aliens who have entered the nation without proper authority nor does it outline steps to be taken to halt the flow. The president has threatened to veto the measure. Democrats are insisting on a “clean” funding bill with no immigration restrictions.
That is the legislation that has fallen into the lap of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville. As you’ll recall, he has promised a “bright, bright, bright sunshiny day,’’ as Johnny Nash used to sing, in the old upper chamber and a vow that none of the federal government’s agencies will shut down as a result of a budgetary dispute.
Well, after three tries, at the urging of the most conservative members of the GOP caucus, McConnell has proved unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to break a Democratic filibuster that prevents the measure from even being debated, giving new meaning to the phrase “paybacks are hell.’’ The leader tried on three separate occasions to tote the bill to the floor only to find himself repelled on each occasion.
So much for the bright, sunshiny day.
Now McConnell is attempting to return serve, suggesting that, perhaps, his good friends in the House will reconsider and send him a new funding bill free of the immigration restrictions.
“I can tell you I think it’s clearly stuck in the Senate,” McConnell told reporters. “And the next step is obviously up to the House.”
To paraphrase House Speaker John Boehner, R-OHio: Nothin’ doin.’
“The House has done its job,’’ Boehner said after a GOP caucus meeting. “It’s time for the Senate to do its job.’’
So McConnell, the grand strategist, finds himself at the back end of an alley with no viable way out. Inevitably, he finds himself getting it from all sides less than a month after assuming the position of leader of the Senate. Boehner won’t toss him a lifeline, Senate Democrats are ignoring him and even some Senate Republicans, those lawmakers expected to display fealty toward their leader, already are taking a walk.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, one of McConnell’s burdens to bear, maintains the only reason the House bill hasn’t passed is because GOP leaders in the upper chamber aren’t trying hard enough. Cruz insisted that he maintained from the beginning that the strategy was “designed to lose’’ and that Republicans instead should have withheld funding for the entire government and refused to consider any Obama nominations in an effort to force the president to recede.
“My objections were overruled,” Cruz told reporters. “Leadership proceeded nonetheless down this path and now it’s incumbent on leadership to explain what their path is to what they stated the end goal would be.”
There is a certain sense of poetic justice to this mess. McConnell was the proud creator of government by obstruction, utilizing the filibuster a record number of times during his tenure as minority leader when Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, led the chamber.
McConnell was always unapologetic about his delay-and-destroy tactics. Now, when those same tactics are deployed against him, he whines.
“It really doesn’t make sense,” McConnell said last week. “I don’t understand why they would block the Senate from even debating.’’
Apparently McConnell was the only person on earth who didn’t see this coming. He might want to pose that question to Harry Reid.
This back-and-forth does act to cloud an essential debate – how to address the immigration issue. The Senate, then under Democratic control, passed a bipartisan reform bill that bolstered security along the southern border while creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers. It was never seriously considered in the House, which would, given its makeup, seek ways to deport the American Indian if it could only figure out where they originally came from.
Now the entire process is stuck in the mire with no conceivable way out, no one rushing into the breach. McConnell has until Feb. 27 – the day funding for the Department of Homeland Security expires – to find an escape hatch. The Fearless Leader has always insisted he could pull a rabbit out of his hat on issues like this when given the opportunity. Let’s see.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.