Tea Party favorite defects from DHS funding compromise

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) will not vote for a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill, because it funds President Obama’s controversial immigration actions, he told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Thursday.

{mosads}“Our laws don’t authorize this action, so if it’s carried out, if its implemented, this action will have the effect of undoing something that Congress has done and doing so in a way that circumvents the Constitution,” he said.

“We have to use the power of the purse; we have to withhold funding when the president does that.”

Senate Democrats have repeatedly filibustered to block a funding measure that would halt Obama’s immigration actions, so Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decided to hold two votes — one on defunding those actions, and the other on a “clean” bill that funds the agency in its entirely.

But some conservative lawmakers are pushing back against that plan, and Heritage Action, the prominent conservative group, said it will score a clean bill as an affirmative vote for immigration “amnesty.”

“If the question is whether I will vote to fund the president’s executive amnesty program, no I will not, and I’d ask my colleagues to stand with me,” Lee said at CPAC.