It was messy and chaotic and, to U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Thursday afternoon, with Congress’ five-week August recess in sight, House Republican leaders realized they did not have the votes to pass a $659 million bill to address the flood of Central American migrants coming across the Southern border.
So they yanked the vote, called some members back from the airport and huddled in the basement of the Capitol for nearly two hours to figure out a way forward. Leaders wrote in a halt to President Barack Obama’s “deferred action” immigration policy for child migrants and passed it Friday.
“Somebody’s going to write the story about that conference as a failure,” said Woodall, a Lawrenceville Republican. “That conference was a wild success. The only question is: Why aren’t we able to work together like that more often?”
More than one such story was written. It certainly didn’t look good, as a small group of conservatives spurned the House GOP’s new leadership team.
A trio of Georgia Republicans emerging from the hastily called meeting all proclaimed that political calculations were far from the mind of the Republicans haggling over details of the border bill.
Needing to simply pass something to show their constituents over August that they were taking action? Pish-posh.
“Passing ‘something’ is not doing our job,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton. “Leadership did the right thing to slow this down, for us to have this conference (meeting) to get any concerns with the language resolved.”
This was not a universal view. U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., came out with choice words for the rebellious archconservatives, who, he said, could not make a substantive case against the original bill and were “scared” of right-wing forces.
And for all the theatrical tinkering, the House bill almost certainly won’t become law, as the Senate and president are aligned against it.
The Senate’s own $2.7 billion border plan tanked Thursday on a procedural vote. Too expensive, said Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, even though it shaved $1 billion from what Obama wanted.
“We just need to do something,” Chambliss said.
Congress’ inability to do something is one reason a frustrated Chambliss is retiring at year’s end.
And yet the final pre-recess week showed that big things are still possible, as both chambers easily cleared fairly serious changes to the Department of Veterans Affairs in response to this year’s ugly scandals.
The difference between the VA bill and the border bill was the dangerous politics of immigration.
“What is missing here (with the border bill) is when you don’t have leadership and a way forward, there’s a tremendous void there for a lot of things to happen in the next five weeks,” Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta said before Congress left town at week’s end.
Mr. Johnson, if you’re nasty
Democratic U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Lithonia took to the House floor on Tuesday to attack Republicans for voting to sue President Barack Obama. Instead of fire and brimstone, he opted for R&B.
“I would use as my text the song some of us may remember by Janet Jackson: ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately,’ ” Johnson said. “That’s what we should ask the House Republicans.”
Johnson went on several times to repeat Jackson’s refrain — directed musically to a lazy boyfriend — with a dramatic pause after the “what” but, alas, no singing.
Johnson also connected the lawsuit with calls in some Republican corners to impeach Obama.
Some Republicans have been talking impeachment for a while, but Democrats have made it a bigger issue lately — in order to fire up their base and raise money.
As Johnson well knows, “Love Will Never Do” when it comes to Republicans and Obama.
VOTE OF THE WEEK
Both chambers voted to pass a $16.3 billion bill to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs in light of recent scandals there.
The Senate passed it 91-3. Yes — Chambliss (R), Isakson (R)
The House passed it 420-5. Yes — Barrow (D), Bishop (D), Broun (R), Collins (R), Gingrey (R), Graves (R), Johnson (D), Lewis (D), Price (R), A. Scott (R), D. Scott (D), Westmoreland (R), Woodall (R). No — Kingston (R).
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