WASHINGTON — House Republicans reacted tepidly at best Wednesday to calls from the upper reaches of both political parties for legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security without immigration-related provisions opposed by the White House.
Three days before a threatened partial shutdown at the agency, House Speaker John Boehner declined repeatedly to say what he would recommend to his rank-and-file if the funding bill clears the Republican-controlled Senate.
"I'm waiting for the Senate to act. The House has done their job," he said after a private meeting of the rank-and-file. Even so, lawmakers were told to be prepared to spend the weekend in the Capitol to resolve the issue.
One day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., proposed decoupling the issue of Homeland Security funding from immigration, Republican Rep. Pete King of New York predicted flatly that a stand-alone spending measure would clear the House if it first passed the Senate.
Yet he acknowledged that is not the preferred course of action for most members of the Republican rank and file, and there was ample evidence of that.
Read Thursday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.