Week's funds for homeland security OK'd

Partial shutdown off for now

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by the No. 2 House Democrat, Steny Hoyer, voices her objections to the Republican majority during a delay in voting for a short-term spending bill for the Homeland Security Department.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by the No. 2 House Democrat, Steny Hoyer, voices her objections to the Republican majority during a delay in voting for a short-term spending bill for the Homeland Security Department.

WASHINGTON -- The Republican-controlled Congress struggled into the night Friday before passing emergency legislation to keep the Homeland Security Department in full funding for one week and avert a partial shutdown at the federal agency with anti-terrorism responsibilities.

photo

AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner walks to the chamber as the House failed to advance a short-term measure to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded past a midnight deadline.

The Senate cleared the measure by voice vote less than four hours before midnight, when funding would expire. That sent the bill to the House, which passed it on a 357-60 vote about two hours ahead of the deadline.

The four representatives from Arkansas, all Republicans, voted in favor of the bill.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that President Barack Obama was prepared to sign a stopgap bill to avoid a shutdown.

"If the president is faced with a choice of having the Department of Homeland Security shut down or fund that department for a short term, the president is not going to allow the agency to shut down," Earnest said.

A few hours earlier, 52 House Republicans unexpectedly joined with Democrats to vote down a three-week funding bill for the department that had been put forward by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his leadership team.

The vote on the earlier bill in the House was 224-203 against the three-week funding as the 52 Republicans abandoned their leaders on the legislation. The representatives from Arkansas also voted in favor of that measure.

"It's a tough position for leadership right now," Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said after the vote on the three-week funding failed.

Republicans had hoped to attach funding for the Homeland Security Department to a measure to undo executive actions by Obama that would block the deportation of up to 5 million illegal aliens.

A federal court order has, for now, blocked the implementation of the policy, but Obama has said he will take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary. And conservatives have continued to fight it.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi chided Republicans even before the earlier House vote saying, "You have made a mess."

In the aftermath, even some Republicans agreed.

"There are terrorist attacks all over world and we're talking about closing down Homeland Security. This is like living in world of crazy people," Rep. Peter King of New York, a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, posted on Twitter.

Rep. French Hill of Arkansas said in a statement that the stopgap bill passed Friday night, while providing full funding for the agency for a week, "gives Congress the opportunity to continue its fight to override the President's attempt to use executive power to grant amnesty in violation of the Constitution's clause demanding a separation of powers."

Before that measure passed, the Department of Homeland Security circulated a lengthy contingency plan Friday evening. The 46-page document indicated that more than 30,000 employees would face furloughs out of a total agency workforce of 225,000.

Much of the department was to remain open, at least temporarily. Airport security checkpoints would remain staffed, immigration agents would be on the job, air marshals would do their work and Coast Guard patrols would sail on. But employees working during a shutdown would not be paid until Congress approves additional funding.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a Thursday letter to lawmakers that forcing about 170,000 employees to work without pay would be "disruptive and demoralizing."

Friday's roller-coaster events at the Capitol underscored the difficulty Republicans have had so far this year in translating last fall's election gains into the type of legislative accomplishment its leaders say is necessary to bolster the party's credentials.

Republicans gained control of the Senate in November's balloting and emerged with their largest House majority in more than 70 years.

"The Republican Congress has shown that it simply cannot govern," Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Friday evening. "Two months into the Republican Congress, we are already staring a Homeland Security shutdown square in the face, even as terrorists around the world threaten to strike America."

For Boehner, said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., "Homeland security is the security of his gavel, and tonight it's less secure."

A combination of conservative, Tea Party-backed Republicans and Democrats brought down the three-week funding measure Friday.

The first group was upset because the legislation had been stripped of changes to Obama's immigration directives. The first, in 2012, lifted the threat of deportation from many foreigners brought to the country illegally as youngsters. Another order last fall applied to millions more who are in the United States unlawfully.

Democrats, meanwhile, opposed that bill in overwhelming numbers because it lacked full-year funding for the sprawling Homeland Security Department.

Pelosi and other Democrats urged Republicans both before and after the vote to allow debate on legislation to keep the department in funds through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year -- a step conservatives opposed.

"It does not make any difference whether the funding is for three weeks, three months or a full fiscal year. If it's illegal, it's illegal," Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., said of Obama's immigration action.

Conservatives have argued that the policy is unconstitutional. The issue has been put before a federal judge in Texas, who temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the policy.

An early, 240-183 test vote in the House indicated ample support for the three-week spending bill. The four representatives from Arkansas also voted in favor of that measure.

But short while later the House was gaveled into recess while the search went on for support to pass the legislation itself.

Some House Republicans said the entire strategy of passing a short-term measure and seeking negotiations on a longer-term bill that included changes in Obama's immigration policy was flawed. They noted that Senate Democrats had demonstrated their ability to block challenges to Obama's immigration policies and that the president had vowed to veto them in any event.

"Some folks just have a harder time facing political reality than others," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., speaking of other Republicans.

Across the Capitol on Friday afternoon, the Senate passed a bill to finance the department that removed the restrictions on Obama's immigration action on a vote of 68-31.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in recent days pitched a plan to Republican senators to vote separately on the funding and the immigration issue.

But the attempt to advance Senate legislation to repeal Obama's immigration directive failed on a vote of 57-42, three short of the 60 required to get it to a final floor vote for passage.

Arkansas' senators, both Republicans, voted for the bill to halt the immigration moves, but they voted against the funding bill.

"While I appreciate Senator McConnell's efforts to find a way forward, this is a problem of the President's creation and he should not get a pass from Congress for his unconstitutional actions. ... I could not, in good conscience, support a DHS funding bill that does not specifically withhold funding for what amounts to amnesty by fiat," Sen. John Boozman said in a statement.

"President Obama's immigration executive order is unlawful and a blatant abuse of his Constitutional authority. Congress must do everything in its power to make sure it's stopped -- not reward the President and Senate Democrats for playing politics with our national security," Sen. Tom Cotton said.

Information for this article was contributed by David Espo, Erica Werner, Charles Babington, Andrew Taylor, Matthew Daly, Laurie Kellman and staff members of The Associated Press; by Justin Sink, Del Quentin Wilber and Heidi Przybyla of Bloomberg News; by Ashley Parker of The New York Times; by William Douglas, Renee Schoof and Danielle Ohl of Tribune News Service; and by Sarah D. Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 02/28/2015

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