CONSERVATIVES OPPOSE GOP BILL
In a defiant challenge to GOP leaders, congressional conservatives announced Wednesday they will oppose upcoming legislation to keep the government open. They said they want it to include specific provisions to stop President Barack Obama’s executive actions that granted a reprieve from deportation for millions. “We should announce we mean what we say, we will use our constitutional authorities to force this president to faithfully execute the laws,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who joined House conservatives in a press conference on the issue. The growing conservative opposition was a problem for House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders a day after they presented a two-part plan to respond to Obama’s move on immigration and keep the government running past Dec. 11, when a current funding measure expires. The plan involved voting on stand-alone legislation this week to declare Obama’s immigration move “null and void.” Then next week, lawmakers would pass a spending bill that funds most government operations for a year. The approach was intended to give the conservatives a chance to vent their anger while not tying down the funding bill with provisions that would almost certainly be rejected by the Democratic-led Senate.
— Associated Press
Many top Republicans have denounced Obama’s unilateral move, which was designed to spare as many as 5 million people living illegally in the United States from deportation.
But Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott took it a step further, filing a formal legal challenge in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. His state is joined by 16 other mostly conservative states, largely in the south and Midwest, including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and the Carolinas.
The states aren’t seeking monetary damages, but instead want the courts to block Obama’s actions.
The lawsuit could make things awkward come Friday, when Abbott travels to Washington to meet with Obama as part of a group of newly elected governors.
Under Obama’s order, announced Nov. 20, protection from deportation and the right to work will be extended to an estimated 4.1 million parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and to hundreds of thousands more young people.
The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution that Abbott said limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government didn’t follow proper rulemaking procedures; and that the order will “exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education.”
Abbott said Obama’s actions “directly violate a fundamental promise to the American people” and that it was up to the president to “execute the law, not de facto make law.”
Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan, have issued past executive orders pertaining to immigration. Abbott said those were in response to actions by Congress — unlike Obama, who Abbott said acted in lieu of congressional approval.
Overwhelmingly elected governor last month, Abbott has been Texas attorney general since 2002. Wednesday marks the 31st time he has sued the federal government since Obama took office.
Many of those were over environmental regulations or the White House’s signature health care law, however. The only other high-profile lawsuit against Obama’s executive order has come on behalf of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Earlier this week, House Speaker John Boehner told lawmakers the GOP-led House may vote to undo Obama’s executive action, but the move would be mostly symbolic, as Obama would certainly veto such legislation and the Democratic-led Senate wouldn’t go for it, either.
Potential 2016 presidential candidate and current Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who leaves office in January, also spoke out against the executive order earlier Wednesday, saying it could trigger a new flood of people pouring across the Texas-Mexico border and create chaos that could be exploited by drug- and people-smugglers.
Perry said hours before Abbott’s announcement that Obama’s 2012 executive order delaying the deportation of children brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents triggered an unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors and families, mostly from Central America, crossing into the U.S. this summer.
“In effect, his action placed a neon sign on our border, assuring people that they could ignore the law of the United States,” said Perry, who has deployed up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border.
Abbott said his state can already predict the future effects of Obama’s executive action based on the 2012 order.
“Texas has been at the epicenter of the results of the president’s executive action,” Abbott said.
In addition to Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and the Carolinas, the federal lawsuit involves Idaho,Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct John Boehner's title.
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