Sunday, December 22, 2024

House GOP moves closer to lawsuit for executive action on immigration

boehner immigration

In a closed-door meeting with Congressional lawmakers Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner announced that his party is moving closer to a vote to authorize legal action against President Obama over his executive actions on immigration. While a course of action is yet to be finalized, the authorization language would allow the House to take steps that include filing a new lawsuit, or joining a previous case against the President for his alleged overstepping of constitutional authority from the November 2014 action on immigration.

The news, according to Drew Hammill, spokesman for Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, is “an embarrassing admission of failure.” He added, “House Republicans are crawling to the courts to relieve them of their responsibility to govern.”

While legal action is one way in which the GOP is pursuing to penalize the President’s alleged transgressions, the Party is also seeking legislative means to continue chipping away at the executive action. Because Congressional Republicans still lack a veto-proof majority in either chamber, their options to move forward with action against the President are limited.

Still, the GOP will not relent. Said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, whose now-infamous “deportable” tweet concerning one of the First Lady’s guests to the State of the Union has created distance within the Republican Party, “We have been litigating on this since 2011 or ’12…and so we keep litigating, keep legislating, and keep talking to the public, and keep doing all we can.”

Should the GOP be serious about winning the Latino vote in 2016, their current trend of litigation and legislation should adopt a different tune, and fast.

Roll Call