Reid: ‘We will not go to conference on some jury-rigged situation’

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday doubled down on his promise to block a conference committee with the House on funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

House Republicans on Friday are poised to vote on a short-term bill to fund DHS through March 19, along with a motion to go to conference with the Senate to negotiate a final funding deal. In the conference committee, Republicans could decide whether the bill should reverse President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

With the Senate poised to approve a “clean” bill that funds DHS through September, Reid is vowing that Democrats will filibuster to ensure the conference committee never takes place.

{mosads}”We will not go to conference on some jury-rigged situation they send back,” Reid said from the Senate floor. “The Senate is proving there is broad bipartisan support for a good bill that will fund the government and keep the government running.”

Reid suggested that a “clean” bill to fund the department, which runs out of money at the end of Friday, would pass the House.

It would “pass on a broad bipartisan vote if Speaker [John] Boehner would simply allow a vote on it. If he allowed Democrats and Republicans to vote in the House as has been done for centuries it would pass overwhelmingly,” he said.

After multiple filibusters, Senate Democrats this week succeeded in forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to strip provisions that would reverse Obama’s immigration actions from the DHS funding bill.

McConnell plans to bring up one of the immigration riders in a separate vote, forcing Democrats to go on record as to whether they support Obama’s 2014 move to defer deportations and provide work visas to illegal immigrants.

The Senate is expected Friday to pass the “clean” bill to fund DHS through September, but senators will also likely pass the three-week stopgap bill to keep the department open.