House Democrats on Tuesday were forced to pull their Homeland Security spending bill from the floor just days before it was slated for a vote, after it faced strong blowback from both progressives and centrists within the caucus.
Dozens of vulnerable Democrats in swing districts as well as progressives had threatened to torpedo the measure in recent days: The moderates argued the bill went too far in cracking down on immigration enforcement, while liberals argued it didn't do nearly enough to rein in the Trump administration's draconian policies.
“Frontline members raised serious concerns that the Homeland bill was a tough vote in swing districts because of its progressive provisions,” a House Democratic aide said Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, frontliners are our majority makers and there is no reason to force them to take a tough vote," the aide said, noting that the House would ultimately still need to negotiate with the Senate GOP to avert a government shutdown this fall. Congress is widely expected to enact a stopgap measure in September and punt any major funding decisions until after the November election.
The House had planned to take up the Department of Homeland Security funding measure on Friday, as part of a seven-bill, $1.4 trillion minibus. The package will now include just six bills, and is expected to easily pass.
The decision by Democratic leaders — while a relief for more moderate members — is a disappointment for appropriators, who had laced the bill with language to curb the Trump administration’s immigration agenda and cut Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
“This is probably the most progressive Homeland Security bill that has ever been presented to the House,” Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), the chair of the Homeland Security spending panel, said last week.
“It literally has everything in it that the advocates, the members, have told me over the years, had to be in the bill,” said Roybal-Allard, ticking off provisions that limit the number of detention beds and prevent the Trump administration from moving money around for its immigration priorities.
Democrats had also crafted an amendment to the DHS bill to block federal funding for the administration’s use of paramilitary action to quell protests in Oregon and Washington state, in hopes of winning over more progressive votes.
But leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus made clear that the amendment wasn't enough, and had been pressing leadership to strip the measure from the minibus.
“Voting to put so much money into this agency, at this moment, when these bills aren’t going to go anywhere in the Senate, I think makes no sense whatsoever,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the CPC, said in an interview last week.
The reversal comes after several weeks of complaints from many Democrats, who questioned the merits of voting on a contentious immigration bill on the floor in an election-year, when it stood no chance of becoming law and would only highlight party divisions on the issue.
It's easy to say this is a rare misfire by Nancy Pelosi, bringing a bill to the floor she didn't have the votes for, and it sounds like she was nowhere near close to having them. Not sure what she was thinking here, but it was an unforced error on her part.
The larger issue is that the Congressional Progressive Caucus in safe blue seats decided making the perfect the enemy of the good is why this vote had to be pulled.
It's also exactly why Trump never gets punished.
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