Groundhog Day in the Senate

It’s Groundhog Day in the U.S. Senate, as floor action has ground to a halt with repeated filibusters and — yes — a partial government shutdown looming. Republicans now in charge of the Senate have tried three times to pass a House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Democrats are blocking it because it has language attached that would prevent President Obama’s executive order on immigration from being carried out. The funding was put on a short leash at the end of last year, when all other government operations were funded for the entire fiscal year, with conservatives hoping a new majority taking over in January would have more leverage over the president when the bill expired Feb. 27. It’s not looking that way.

{mosads}In the time the Senate has spent trying to pass a bill GOP leaders know won’t pass, they could have actually debated their own immigration legislation. Not having their own immigration bill is one of the reasons Obama took executive action, and indeed he promised to, and warned it was coming, numerous times. Yet House Republican leaders await a solution from Senate Republicans and Senate Republicans hope the House, realizing the Senate can’t pass their bill, will take up a different bill. This has wasted weeks of time. Some House Republicans have suggested that the Senate employ the nuclear option to change the Senate rules and end the filibuster. Others have suggested a short-term extension which leads to — the same problem weeks later.

Conservatives who refuse to support a “clean” funding bill say they are convinced Democrats will be blamed if DHS shuts down because they were obstructionist. Publicly, Republican leaders agree, but privately they fear their party will be blamed once more. They have fallen into a trap laid by President Obama and exacerbated by their most conservative members — neither of whom are very interested in Republican leaders’ promises to “govern.”

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