House Republicans seemed intent last week on doing themselves and the country damage by tying funding for Homeland Security to a roll back of the president’s executive amnesty program. But perhaps it was all for show. The bill, which includes provisions not only to end the most recent Obama executive action giving deferred status to some 5 million illegal immigrants but also to end the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) passed the House 236-191.
But the bill has no chance of garnering enough votes in the Senate to send it to the president’s desk. The move was cynical at best. Given the attack by terrorists in Paris–and interrupted plots in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe–playing politics with national security is not just dumb it’s downright un-American.
Not all Republicans were ready to shoot themselves in the head. In a vote on Wednesday, Jan. 14th, 26 Republicans jumped ship and voted against the amendment to end DACA, which nonetheless passed by a narrow margin. The GOP leadership’s unwillingness to rein in the radicals will make passing needed reform more difficult. But as Rep. Devin Nunes asked at a GOP retreat held the day after the vote, “Sometime, somebody’s got to pass something, right?” Only if the GOP is serious about governing…