It's déjà vu for Boehner: He's caught between trying to help his caucus out of tricky situations, and looking over his shoulder for conservatives who want his head on a platter if he caves to Democrats. What we haven't been able to understand: Why haven't Boehner and Republicans been able to make their success (so far) in the courts against Obama's executive action an asset here?
That's simple. House conservatives don't want a resolution to the funding impasse. It was actually a Texas judge holding the platter, on which lay an easy out for House Republicans: Obama's executive action had been struck down, temporarily anyway, and higher courts would soon decide the executive action's constitutionality. With that ruling, conservatives could have declared victory, passed a DHS funding bill, and that, as they say, would have been that.
But "that," for Republicans, possessed two cyclopean pitfalls. First of all, using a judicial ruling as a legislative escape hatch would have been logical, and Republicans don't "do" logic. The even more sizable pitfall was, as always, political: Republicans have their teeth deep into a new and quite popular chew toy, and they're not about to let loose. Screwing tens of thousands of government workers and endangering national security may not be ideal for the country, but what do the GOP base and its couple hundred Huey Longs care? There's raw Obama-Tyranny!-bashing to be had, and that's all that matters.
Perhaps POTUS, as the Chief Executive, should simply shuffle the blocks between different departments--move ICE somewhere else right after the GOP shuts down DHS. Wouldn't that jar their mothers' applesauce?
Posted by: shsavage | February 26, 2015 at 12:35 PM