Rubio: ‘Hypocrisy’ that GOP would get shutdown blame

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that Republicans would be unfairly blamed for a partial government shutdown over the immigration executive action at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

He was asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity why there was a fear of Republicans being blamed if Congress allows the government to shut down.

{mosads}”Because we are, they do,” he said. “That’s the hypocrisy of this, right? So when we’re in the minority and we filibuster ObamaCare — we want to repeal or at least get a vote on it — we’re shutting down the government. When they’re in the minority, and their filibustering getting rid of this executive order, we’re shutting down the government, too. Any way you look at it, that’s how they’re going to portray it.”

His comments come as congressional Republicans look to avert a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security over President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

House Republicans will vote Friday on a continuing resolution to fund the Department through mid-March. Rubio and his colleagues in the Senate are expected to follow suit, though they will also vote on a longer-term funding bill. 

Some conservatives having taken issue with the short term measure because it does not block the executive action.

Rubio said the immigration executive order was an issue worth taking a stand on.

“This latest issue that we face, on the executive order that the president issued in December, it is not a policy issue per se alone, it is a constitutional issue,” he said, to approval from the crowd.

Rubio noted that the president had said in the years before issuing the order that he had limited authority to stop deportations.

“As far as I can tell, in the last four years the Constitution has not been amended, so I don’t know where he suddenly found the constitutional power to do this,” he said.