By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--March 2, 2015
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The smart play now would be for Republicans to fund DHS and move on to more promising policy ground including the budget. Texas and other states that oppose the order have already won a legal victory when a federal court issued a preliminary injunction against implementing it. The Administration has appealed, but even if it wins in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the issue is likely to go the Supreme Court. The Cliff Marchers dismiss this as surrender and are insisting on a long fight over the immigration order even if it means a partial DHS shutdown. (We say partial because some 85% of DHS’s 240,000 workers are deemed essential and would still report for duty even if the government deferred their pay. The core security functions of DHS would continue.) The GOP dissenters say they’d prevail over time as the public came to see Mr. Obama’s fealty to his immigration diktat as the real cause of the shutdown. Miracles do happen, but in every previous shutdown the voters blamed Republicans more than Mr. Obama. And if there is a terror attack, good luck explaining that Congress isn’t to blame because those DHS workers were supposed to be on the job even if they weren’t being paid. Some of the Cliff Marchers are also demanding that Republicans break Senate rules and cashier the filibuster to pass the House bill. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy picked up that theme Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He pointed out that 57 Senators, including four Democrats, had voted to oppose Mr. Obama’s November order. But busting the filibuster on policy would have ramifications far beyond this fight. Republicans would have to violate Senate rules, which require a two-thirds vote to change a rule midsession. They would also exceed what even Democrat Harry Reid did in breaking the filibusters for executive nominations. Most important, this would remove what has long been a procedural barrier to narrow liberal majorities rewriting labor and election laws to hurt conservatives. If Republicans are going to throw out the filibuster, it should be done based on more than the desperation of a rump group in the House.I suspect I'm going to get pounded in the comments here, but I think the WSJ editors are right. Governing is the art of the possible, and while I agree that McConnell and Boehner are often too timid about the pursuit of what's possible - whether for fear of the media or whatever other reason - I also think there are House members who insist on taking every opportunity to accomplish something and pushing for more until they're pushing for the impossible and refusing to accept anything else. And what they end up with is nothing. This should have been very simple: You offer Obama one bill. It funds all of DHS except for amnesty. Take it or leave it, buddy. He couldn't really have refused. But when the Republican caucus can't even agree on what the objective is, that's when you end up needing Democrat votes to pass anything. At that point you've once again got Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi exercising de facto control of Congress. Even Generals Grant, Patton and McArthur knew when to take what they could and when to beat a strategic retreat and live to fight another day. That's not weakness or squishiness. It's strategic intelligence. Insisting on something that's impossible - and if you can't have it, then nothing - will leave you with nothing every time. If you think the people doing this are heroes, then I'd like you to tell me exactly what they've accomplished. Because Obama is running roughshod over the Constitution every day and not a single thing has been done to rein him in. Not because it couldn't have, but because the Republican majority can't get its crap together. This is a disgrace.
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