[ FOR AAS ]
HOW THEY VOTED
The House voted 257-167 Tuesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the current fiscal year.
John Carter (R), Yes
Lloyd Doggett (D), Yes
Blake Farenthold (R), No
Bill Flores (R), No
Michael McCaul (R), Yes
Lamar Smith (R), No
Roger Williams (R), No
[ FOR AJC ]
HOW THEY VOTED
The House voted 257-167 Tuesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the current fiscal year.
Rick Allen (R), No
Sanford Bishop (D), Yes
Buddy Carter (R), No
Doug Collins (R), No
Tom Graves (R), No
Jody Hice (R), No
Hank Johnson (D), Yes
John Lewis (D), Yes
Barry Loudermilk (R), No
Tom Price (R), No
Austin Scott (R), No
David Scott (D), Yes
Lynn Westmoreland (R), No
Rob Woodall (R), No
[ FOR CMGO ]
HOW THEY VOTED
The House voted 257-167 Tuesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the current fiscal year.
John Boehner (R), Yes
Steve Chabot (R), No
Jim Jordan (R), No
Michael Turner (R), Yes
Brad Wenstrup, (R), No
[ FOR PBP ]
HOW THEY VOTED
The House voted 257-167 Tuesday to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the current fiscal year.
Ted Deutch (D), Yes
Lois Frankel (D), Yes
Alcee Hastings (D), Yes
Patrick Murphy (D), Yes
The Republican-controlled Congress sent legislation to President Barack Obama on Tuesday that funds the Department of Homeland Security without any of the immigration-related concessions they had demanded, bringing an end to a three-month drama.
“Sanity is prevailing,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, before the House voted 257-167 in favor of the $40 billion spending bill, which Obama was expected to sign promptly.
The tea party side of the GOP caucus expressed deep disappointment.
“This is a very, very sad day,” said Republican Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona, one of the many conservatives who had urged House leaders not to give in, even if it meant a partial shutdown of the department. “If we’re not going to fight now, when are we going to fight?”
All 182 Democrats present voted for the bill, while it received only 75 Republican “yes” votes.
The outcome averted a partial shutdown that would have begun Friday at midnight. It was a wholesale retreat for Republicans, who have spent months railing against what they term a “unconstitutional overreach” by Obama in extending deportation stays and work permits to millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
In the end Republicans who had tried to use the DHS spending bill to undo Obama’s actions had little to show but weeks of gridlock and chaos on Capitol Hill in the wake of assuming full control of Congress in January. The turmoil brought the Homeland Security Department to within hours of a partial shutdown last Friday before Congress passed a one-week extension, and displayed the deep divisions that are making it difficult for the Republicans to take concerted action on party priorities — or even agree on what those priorities should be.
On Tuesday morning, addressing an uncharacteristically subdued gathering of House Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner indicated he was out of options.
“I am as outraged and frustrated as you at the lawless and unconstitutional actions of this president,” Boehner told his caucus. “I believe this decision — considering where we are — is the right one for this team, and the right one for this country.”
“Our Republican colleagues in the Senate never found a way to win this fight,” he said, noting that the matter, in any case, is now in the courts. A federal judge last month put Obama’s directives on hold, a ruling the White House is appealing.
Conservative lawmakers who humiliated Boehner last week by voting down a three-week spending bill he proposed did not speak up in the private meeting to dissent or ask questions, people present said.
Afterward, the conservatives said they were disappointed but had no more moves to make.
“I don’t know that there is one,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. “This is the signal of capitulation.”
In a statement, Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson thanked Democrats and Republicans who voted for the bill and, “in particular, those in Congress who showed the leadership necessary to get the job done.”
The measure funds the Homeland Security Department through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year. It pays for numerous priorities including Transportation Security agents, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, a host of immigration-related functions and grants to local governments.
There have been suggestions that Boehner would face an insurrection by tea party-backed conservatives if he brought a “clean” DHS bill to the floor. But Boehner’s opponents seemed resigned, and there was little sign of a brewing coup.
Indeed, several Republicans said Tuesday that the outcome was inevitable. Many had campaigned for re-election last fall on promises to stop Obama on immigration, and cheered when Boehner promised to fight the president’s moves “tooth and nail.” Yet several acknowledged they never had a viable plan to do so, given Obama’s veto power and Senate Democrats’ opposition, which stalled a House-passed bill containing the immigration provision.
The GOP strategy was especially risky given the Homeland Security Department’s anti-terrorism responsibilities, which gave Democrats an opening to accuse Republicans of putting national security at risk.
“We all knew how this was going to end,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “If somebody wants to make an argument against those of us who are doing our duty and governing responsibly, they can feel free to have the argument. We are prepared to defend ourselves and I believe the Speaker will come out of this just fine.”
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The drama unfolded as a lesson in the limits of divided government.
The fight was set up last fall, when Boehner and GOP leaders convinced House conservatives to wait until the GOP took control of the Senate in January and had a bigger majority in the House to try to overturn Obama on immigration.
Congress passed a full-year spending bill for the rest of the government, but kept the Homeland Security Department on a short leash to use its spending bill as the vehicle to oppose the president.
Republicans predicted that the handful of Senate Democrats who had voiced concerns about Obama’s immigration actions would join them. But the DHS spending bill the House passed in January was modified by conservatives so that it took aim not only at Obama’s most recent executive actions but a directive from 2012 that extended protections to immigrants brought illegally to the country as children.
That helped unify Democrats against it, and Senate rules did the rest. Republicans command only 54 votes in the chamber, not the 60 needed to advance most legislation, and Senate Democrats blocked the House bill repeatedly.
In the end, the House contingent that opposed Boehner had little to do but bemoan what had become a foregone conclusion. As the drama neared its end Tuesday they offered a few final procedural moves — forcing the reading clerk to read part of the bill out loud, and offering a motion to table — but they had no hope of prevailing.
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