Alice in Wonderland Meets Congressional Republicans

Recent machinations in Congress reminded me of an exchange in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland. “ Substituting Congressional Republicans for Alice and John Boehner for the Cheshire Cat, the following conversation might occur:

Republican: “I don’t want to go among mad people.”

JB: “Oh, you can’t help that, we’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.”

Republican: “How do you know I’m mad?”

JB: “You must be or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Republicans, who now control both Houses of Congress, are unable to agree on how to respond to President Obama's immigration policies. Recently he issued Executive Orders which would shield an estimated five million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Conservative Republicans have added a rider to a bill extending funding for the Department of Homeland Security, cancelling the Executive Orders. DHS funding expires this Friday. The Democrats aren’t budging and the Republicans cannot get the funding bill through.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, plans to hold a vote on a bill that would extend DHS funding for another three weeks. What is the point of setting an arbitrary deadline for such a short time? The expression, “kicking the can down the road,” comes to mind. Has Boehner the 218 votes he needs to pass this short-term bill? If not, DHS funding will expire. 

If the House bill passes, the House and Senate will have just three weeks to bridge their fundamental differences on funding DHS for the long term and, at the same time, block President Obama’s changes to immigration policy. In addition, Congress must update a complicated Medicare reimbursement formula for doctors. And it needs to pass the budget. There is a logjam down the road, not just a tin can, and a major governance failure for the Republican Congress. GOP leaders have vowed to avoid such problems but we have heard all this before.

Republicans will continue their internal debate over whether to partially close DHS and protest President Obama’s immigration actions. The party has virtually no chance of forcing Obama to roll back his immigration plans. Senate Democrats will almost certainly filibuster any legislation that blocks Obama’s executive orders, just as they did in January and February. Even if Senate Republicans manage to eliminate filibusters, as Democrats did during the last Congress, they don’t have the votes to overcome a presidential veto. Republicans have only one other form of leverage: cut off DHS funding in hopes that Obama will roll back his immigration plans.

For now, the president’s executive orders on immigration are on indefinite hold after a federal judge last month temporarily suspended them in response to a 26-state lawsuit challenge. The Obama administration will appeal the decision, which will prolong the legal battle into next year, especially if the case moves to the Supreme Court.

President Obama has never conceded to shutdown threats. Furthermore, the last partial government closure in 2013 hurt Republicans’ approval ratings far more than his own. It’s unclear what Republicans will do about DHS this week, but one thing is certain: a shutdown alone will not negate the recent immigration orders. Will we see John Boehner adopt the role of another “Alice” character, the Mad Hatter, and run around the House saying, “clean vote?”