http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/19/politics/republican-leadership-against-durbin-graham-bill/index.html
“Republican leaders pressure members against Durbin-Graham DACA bill
By: Tal Kopan and Phil Mattingly, CNN
Republican Senate leadership is waging a quiet, behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to encourage GOP members to not sign onto a bipartisan immigration deal.
Sources say the pressure is directed at members who might support a bill proposed by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and rest of the so-called Gang of Six.
Two GOP sources with knowledge of the process say Republican leadership — including Sen. Mitch McConnell — has made clear to several members that it wouldn’t be helpful to the current Republican strategy to get onto the proposal.
Meanwhile, Congress remained hours away from a government shutdown on Friday.
Republican Majority Whip John Cornyn’s spokesman denied any active whip operation, pointing to Cornyn’s public statements against the bill.
“To write our office is whipping against their proposal (I haven’t seen a bill, have you?) is factually inaccurate. It could not be further from the truth,” the spokesman said in an email.
But sources close to the process say the pressure does exist.
Durbin and Graham have managed to lock up four Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Susan Collins of Maine — in addition to the three Republicans that made up half of the “gang” to support the proposal so far — still four votes short of enough to muster the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the legislation if all Democrats join in. It still has not been introduced in legislative text form, but a description of the pieces of the bill has been made public.
President Donald Trump last week rejected the proposal, in vulgar terms, in an Oval Office meeting where it was presented to him.
The day before the Gang of Six unveiled their plan, Graham, Flake and Durbin were visibly working the Senate floor during a long FISA cloture vote. The three of them spoke at separate times with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, for example, who voted for immigration reform before.
Asked if anyone was trying to undermine their efforts on the bill on Thursday, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, himself a member of the GOP leadership, denied activity to tank a deal.
“I think there are probably people on the left and right who don’t want a solution; I don’t feel that anybody is actively working against a solution,” Gardner told reporters.
Graham and Cornyn have landed publicly on different sides of the issue. Asked about Cornyn’s assertion there would not be a short-term continuing resolution of a few days on Thursday, Graham replied: “Well then you need to tell Sen. Cornyn, I respect him a lot, but he needs to get 60 votes. Good luck.”
Government funding runs out at midnight on Friday and the Senate does not appear to have the votes for a House-passed continuing resolution into mid-February.”
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http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/goodlatte-hardline-bill-freedom-caucus-deal/index.html
“GOP leaders promise to whip hard-line immigration bill
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
Conservative House members say they got a promise from leadership to pursue a separate hard-line Republican-only immigration bill in exchange for their votes to pass government funding Thursday night — a measure that several Republicans doubt could pass the House, let alone the Senate.
The bill is a proposal from key committee and subcommittee chairs Bob Goodlatte, Raul Labrador, Mike McCaul and Martha McSally that includes a large number of hard-line immigration provisions that Democrats and some Republicans have said are nonstarters.
Labrador told CNN after votes Thursday that the commitment to members of the House Freedom Caucus was “to actually whip (the bill) and to work on it like they did on all the other important bills we’ve done this year.” While there was no clear timeline for a floor vote, Labrador said that “should” be the goal.
More…http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/goodlatte-hardline-bill-freedom-caucus-deal/index.html”
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Not looking good right now. Both sides digging in.
PWS
01-19-18
I don’t agree with your view of the Gang of Six’s bill. See my article, “‘Gang of Six’ DACA bill is an exploitative political statement,”
http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/369403-gang-of-six-daca-bill-is-an-exploitative-political-statement
While it may be possible to pass that bill in the Senate, it would be dead on arrival in the House. The Gang of Six know this, as they knew that their bill was not a serious counter proposal to Trump’s conditions for a DACA fix. As they also knew that their bill would be dead on arrive in the House when five of them were on the Gang of Eight four years ago, and they passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was opposed by 70% of the Senate Republicans.
You can blame Trump or the Republicans or anyone else you wan to blame, but you can’t change the fact that these senators are not doing the vulnerable DACA population by raising their hopes with a bill that they know is not going to be enacted.