http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/republican-leaders-shutdown-immigration-113149.html?hp=lc2_4GOP leaders uniting around plan to avoid shutdown
By Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
11/24/14 7:29 PM EST
Updated 11/25/14 8:39 AM EST
House Republican leaders are beginning to coalesce around a strategy to avoid a government shutdown in less than a month.
The likely proposal would fund nearly the entire government through September 2015, but immigration enforcement related funding would be renewed on a short-term basis, according to several high-ranking GOP lawmakers and aides who described the plan as it stands now.
The strategy is designed to keep the government open, while satisfying the base, which is livid with President Back Obama for issuing an executive order that ends deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants.
Republican leaders have struggled to come up with a plan that would satisfy both goals — of keeping the government open, while allowing members to express their anger at Obama. GOP sources believe that keeping immigration funding on a short leash could be the answer.
The short-term portion would most likely expire sometime in the first quarter of 2015, sources said. The delay would give Republican leaders more options to counter Obama’s executive order without inducing a government shutdown.
In GOP circles, this plan has taken on the name of “CROmnibus” — a combination of CR, the short-term funding bill, and omnibus, the longer-term way to fund the government that includes the 12 annual funding bills.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said no final decision has been made on how the House will move forward on the issue. Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, said, “Negotiations with the Senate continue, and the committee has made significant progress on a full year, 12-bill omnibus bill. We expect to have that bill ready for the floor the week of Dec. 8.”
Congress returns to Washington Dec. 1, just 10 days before government funding is set to expire, and Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) say they are intent on avoiding a government shutdown. Obama’s executive action has inflamed conservatives, who believe he has overstepped his constitutional authority. Some hard-line GOP lawmakers are calling for a showdown with Obama, but Boehner and McConnell have no desire to relive the October 2013 government shutdown. McConnell, Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that the Republican-controlled Capitol Hill would stop governing by crisis. Boehner last week, however, said that he has plenty of energy to fight Obama.
Some conservatives have called on Congress to choke off funding for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but those employees are funded by fees, not congressional appropriations.
GOP aides and lawmakers say they expect the leadership to consider additional legislation to address the executive order, but there have been no decisions made on what those bills would look like. There are lots of ideas: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has signaled he would hold up some of Obama’s executive branch nominees, others privately have been musing about shutting the government down, refusing to invite the president to give his State of the Union address or censuring the president. Many in congressional leadership think these ideas are nonsensical, since it will not serve any practical purpose.
The year-end drama has caught Washington by surprise. Republicans wanted to use the lame-duck session of Congress — which runs from the day after Election Day until Jan. 3, 2015 — to clear away lingering legislative issues to give the party the ability advance a proactive agenda in 2015. House GOP leaders have been trying to convince the rank and file that they need to be able to fight Obama while showing they can also govern.
There are broader political considerations for the party, as well. The 2016 election is rapidly approaching, and the GOP doesn’t want its huge electoral gains to be followed by a spate of crises. Furthermore, the party has a narrow window to govern: Jockeying for the presidential election will begin in the second half of 2015.
