House DACA talks prepare to enter new high-stakes stage
By Tal Kopan and Lauren Fox, CNN
A rebellion by moderate House Republicans to force an immigration vote is widely expected to succeed this week, pushing members in at least one chamber of Congress to address one of the most hot-button topics in American politics months before the midterm elections and against the wishes of GOP leadership.
The final congressional signatures are likely to be added to a proposal in the next 36 hours that would bypass the wishes of House Speaker Paul Ryan and his deputies and ensure moderates a vote on immigration later this month.
But there’s a catch.
Moderates say they will continue to negotiate with party leadership and conservatives — even if they get enough support to force their own vote — in hopes that a different, Republican-only immigration deal can spare the party leaders from an embarrassing and free-wheeling debate on the floor expected to benefit a bipartisan deal heavily supported by Democrats, while still delivering the immigration vote moderates need.
The House Republican infighting on this issue highlights how divisive immigration is to Republicans in Congress, particularly on questions of whether to support a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants as well as what to pair with it beyond a border wall, including substantial changes to the legal immigration system. The fight has also tested the power of leadership keeping moderates and conservatives at the negotiating table for weeks even while progress has seemed slow to nonexistent.
But as for staving off at least one key development, leadership’s time appears to be up.
The fireworks are expected to begin Tuesday. That’s the day members of the House return to Washington from the weekend and thus can physically sign a discharge petition, a rarely used and rarely successful House procedural maneuver that forces a vote on a bill (or in this case a series of bills) if half of House members sign on. It is also the last day the petition’s organizers believe they have to get all the signatures if they want to hold the series of immigration votes before the end of the month.
More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/daca-congress-discharge-petition-immigration/index.html
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Given Sessions’s daily, indeed nearly hourly, assaults on the law, the Constitution, and human values, sometimes it’s hard to remember that other stuff is going on.
PWS
06-11-17