Will republicans force another shutdown in 2015?

Washington Braces for a Homeland Security Shutdown

A day after Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate last November, Mitch McConnell promised that things would be different with the GOP in control of both chambers of Congress. "The American people have changed the Senate. So I think we have an obligation to change the behavior of the Senate and to begin to function again." When a reporter followed up asking McConnell how the American people could believe him (after what happened in the last Congress and the Congress before that), he replied, "Well, we have to demonstrate it." But not even two months into this new GOP-controlled Congress, it appears we're headed for yet another shutdown -- this time over the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans claim that Senate Democrats are the ones obstructing things, because they are filibustering a DHS funding bill that contains riders rolling back President Obama's executive actions on immigration. Yet as we learned during the last government shutdown, the side that's using government spending to demand changes to existing law or directives is going to be side that gets blamed if the government (or just part of it) shuts down. But don't take our word for it. Take the word of GOP Sen. (and likely presidential candidate) Lindsey Graham. "If we don't fund the Department of Homeland Security, we'll get blamed as a party," he said on Sunday.

Remembering what happened to the GOP during the last shutdown

While the shutdown of 2013 ultimately didn't hurt the Republican Party in the midterms the following year, it is worth pointing out what happened just days after the shutdown began, according to our Oct. 2013 NBC/WSJ poll. The GOP's fav/unfav rating DECLINED from 28% positive/44% negative in Sept. 2013 to 24% positive/53% negative right after the shutdown began; the Democrats' advantage on the generic ballot INCREASED from three to eight points; and President Obama's approval rating went UP from 45% to 47%. Now there are two ways to look this one. One, you can say that the GOP took a short-term hit but ultimately didn't get punished. Or two, you can say that the problems associated with HealthCare.Gov and the federal health-care law -- which became a two-month story -- bailed out Republicans.

McConnell's possible way out

After Democrats -- for the fourth time -- filibustered the GOP attempt to tie DHS funding to the rolling back of Obama's immigration actions, Senate Majority Leader McConnell offered a POTENTIAL way out of the shutdown standoff. Per NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, McConnell has proposed a stand-alone bill that denies funding for the implementation of Obama's 2014 executive action. This bill, O'Donnell adds, is not attached to DHS spending. The glass-half-full take here is that Republicans, for the first time, are now legislatively separating the immigration rollbacks from the DHS funding, which offers a potential way out of the impasse. (Indeed, NBC's Frank Thorp reports that Dem Sen. Joe Manchin could likely support this McConnell bill if it comes AFTER a clean bill to fund DHS.) The glass-half-empty take is that we have NO IDEA if House Republicans will buy this gambit. There's another potential way out: McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner could propose language promising to prohibit any funds implementing Obama's executive actions on immigration as long as they're tied up in the courts. (And from those reading the tea leaves, that looks to be a while.) Such a proposal could give Republicans higher ground than they enjoy now. Saying, "Hey, we shouldn't have the government spend any funds on actions that the courts are currently considering" could be more popular than essentially saying, "The only way we're funding the Department of Homeland Security is by ripping up Obama's executive actions." The shutdown countdown clock is ticking…

Hillary goes to Silicon Valley

There are several 2016 storylines today, and we start with Hillary Clinton's speech in Silicon Valley. The San Francisco Chronicle: "In her appearance before a Silicon Valley women's conference Tuesday, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is staking an early claim to voters who could be key to her 2016 presidential ambition: upwardly mobile professional women who might be called "Lean In" voters... Clinton will be keynote speaker at the gathering at the Santa Clara Convention Center that has attracted scores of other prominent women — among them designer Diane Von Furstenberg, tech columnist Kara Swisher and former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson." Per the guidance we've received, Clinton will take the stage around 4:45 pm ET and will speak for about 25 minutes. After her speech, Clinton will sit down with tech journalist Kara Swisher and take questions for another 25 minutes.

Rubio's in New Hampshire

On the GOP side, Marco Rubio is in New Hampshire, and he sure sounds like someone who's more than exploring a possible presidential bid. "I'm grateful that you would come here to listen to me this afternoon, and I look forward to coming back again and talking to you many, many more times," he said yesterday in the Granite State, per NH1's Paul Steinhauser. More from the New York Times: "[T]hough he is not expected to make any official announcement until April, he is quietly telling donors that he is committed to running for president, not re-election to the Senate. (During a stop in Las Vegas, Mr. Rubio met privately with Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and major Republican donor. Neither Mr. Rubio nor Mr. Adelson's team would comment on what the two men had discussed.)" But as NBC's Perry Bacon wrote last week, Rubio -- once hailed as a the GOP's "savior" -- now finds himself as the underdog with fellow Floridian Jeb Bush also in the race. "A number of one-time Rubio fundraisers, including Washington lobbyist and longtime Rubio adviser Dirk Van Dongen, have said they will back Jeb Bush instead of the Florida senator."

Good news, bad news for Christie

Meanwhile, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- now far removed from the GOP's 2016 top tier - is announcing a truce with his state's teachers. The Newark Star-Ledger: "The governor and the state's largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, are working on 'groundbreaking changes' to fix the state's ailing pension system, Christie's office said Monday. Christie will also announce plans to make a $1.3 billion pension payment in the state budget that begins July 1. That payment is almost double what he put into the system for the current fiscal year, but far below what the state is supposed to contribute under the 2011 pension reform law." So that's the good news for Christie. The bad news? "A state judge ruled Monday that Gov. Chris Christie broke a law he signed by cutting nearly $1.6 billion from pension payments and must work with state lawmakers to restore the money in the current state budget," the Star-Ledger adds.

What makes Walker so formidable: He has a (conservative) record of turning words into action

While the DC political world is focused about what Scott Walker is saying (and not saying) about Rudy Giuliani or President Obama's Christianity, don't miss what the Wisconsin governor is about to do in his own state -- break the state's unions once and for all. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Leadership committees in both houses of the Legislature voted Monday along party lines to approve an extraordinary session to take up so-called right-to-work legislation later this week in committee and on the Senate floor. Right-to-work laws ban labor contracts in the private sector that require workers to pay union fees." The paper adds that even union officials acknowledge that they're unable to stop these labor-law changes. Yes, Walker has received lots of bad press in recent days. But what separates himself from other GOP 2016ers is that he has a RECORD of turning words into action. And that is what makes him potentially formidable in a GOP presidential primary.

Will Rahm avoid a runoff in Chicago?

Finally, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is up for re-election today. He needs 50% plus one to avoid an April runoff, which would be embarrassing for the well-known mayor. "Emanuel is poised to get the most votes after having raised millions of dollars, plastering the airwaves with ads and winning an endorsement from his former boss, President Barack Obama. However, his four challengers say Emanuel's tenacious style and handling of some major city issues have left voters wanting a change," the AP writes. This is what happens when you have to run against yourself rather than well-known opponents.

boards of FL wrote:6-0?

Not much confidence in this republican congress?

GOP lawmakers clash over shutdown
Tensions rise within the party despite control of both chambers of Congress.

A tense debate broke out during a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans on Tuesday, a sign of the serious hurdles GOP leaders face ahead of a critical funding deadline for the nation’s chief domestic anti-terrorism agency.

According to four senators at the lunch session, a frustrated Sen. Jeff Sessions angrily dismissed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan, arguing that his party should be prepared for an all-out battle with Democrats to ratchet up public pressure and force President Barack Obama to drop his immigration policies. But Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican who could face a tough reelection next year, sharply countered that McConnell’s plan was the only option to not hamper law enforcement agencies that rely on money from the Department of Homeland Security.

The dispute between the vulnerable Republican and the Alabama conservative highlights the larger challenges facing McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner. The two are staring at a Friday deadline to avoid a shutdown of DHS but are struggling to balance the demands of immigration hard-liners with Republicans who fear political and practical fallout from DHS shutting down.

McConnell has been quiet for weeks about his next steps. But his new proposal on Tuesday — to extend DHS funding through September while advancing a separate plan to block a portion of Obama’s immigration proposal — signaled that he’s nervous a shutdown could damage his party politically. Twenty-four GOP senators are up for reelection next year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pictured. | AP

Boehner is in an even tighter jam: Any sense that he is caving to the White House could further erode confidence in his leadership among the far right, which is furious at Obama’s immigration push. Boehner has not directly addressed whether he’d put a stand-alone funding bill on the floor, and several Republican leadership sources say they favor several short-term measures to try to keep the heat on the White House.

Senate Democrats are refusing to sign on to McConnell’s proposal without a commitment from the speaker to move a “clean” DHS funding bill. But several House Republicans and their top aides have privately told POLITICO that a misstep by Boehner in this legislative skirmish could imperil his speakership. One said that Republicans would weigh trying to remove him from the position if he relents on his promise to fight the president’s unilateral action on immigration “tooth and nail.”

“Speaker Boehner has my sympathy in that he has a somewhat divided conference — he has to try to balance all the different influences within his conference,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “He has my sympathies, very tough work.”

In a sign of how difficult the path in the House is, one senior House Republican, who is close to party leaders and spoke anonymously to discuss strategy, said the Senate’s plan to send two bills to the House is “a joke.” Several top House Republicans believe the only way a clean funding bill can pass their chamber is if the DHS shuts down and pressure builds for a resolution.

For weeks, McConnell and Boehner have been on opposite pages on their strategies to break the immigration-DHS impasse — a sign of how the two men will have to continually reconcile conflicting agendas between the two chambers despite having total control of Congress for the first time in nearly a decade. The problem started after the November election, when Obama, ignoring warnings from GOP leaders, proceeded with a plan to defer deportations and provide work permits to roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Struggling for a response, and fearful of a governmentwide shutdown in December, Republicans cut a deal with Democratic leaders to fund the entire government through September — except DHS, whose funding lapses on Feb. 27. House GOP leaders, scrambling to find the votes in their chamber for the December funding package, told their rank and file at the time that their party would have more leverage to force Obama’s hand on immigration when a newly empowered GOP Congress took up the DHS funding bill in February.

Last month, the House GOP moved forward with a $39.7 billion package for DHS. But it stood little chance of passing the Senate, where Republicans have 54 seats, six shy of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. The House plan would block not only the 2014 executive action but also the 2012 plan that Obama enacted administratively to shield young illegal immigrants from deportation. House Republican leaders made it clear to their Senate GOP counterparts that they needed to hold multiple votes on their plan, to show the upper chamber was putting up a fight.

After Senate Democrats repeatedly blocked the bill from even reaching a debate, McConnell said earlier this month that the next step was “up to” the House. But Boehner pushed back, saying it was in the Senate’s hands, feeding the perception in the Capitol that the two leaders failed to conceive of a plan out of the logjam from the onset.

“It seems like McConnell and Boehner aren’t even talking to each other,” one veteran GOP senator said. “It is mind-boggling.”

After Senate Democrats blocked the House’s DHS bill on Monday for a fourth time, McConnell proposed a new strategy. He offered a stand-alone bill — not tied to DHS funding — targeting the 2014 executive actions, something that might attract enough Democrats to clear a filibuster but would likely lack enough support to override a veto. And on Tuesday, he told his caucus that he would advance a $39.7 billion funding bill free of immigration language.

Jeh Johnson: DHS funding is 'critical'

Republican leaders in both chambers hope their sales jobs will be made easier by a recent federal district court order that blocked the 2014 executive actions. That ruling, handed down in Texas, argued the president unlawfully enacted the immigration policies. The Obama administration is seeking a stay of the judge’s decision and is planning to appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview Tuesday that the court case is “really the superior way for us to challenge the president.”

McConnell added: “With Democratic cooperation on a position that they’ve been advocating for the last two months, we can have that vote quickly. … I don’t know what’s not to like about this; this is an approach that respects both points of view.”

But a clean funding bill, several House Republican aides and lawmakers said, would be politically perilous. House Republicans almost uniformly would prefer a short-term DHS funding bill, which would give Congress the opportunity to revisit the department’s budget as court proceedings chug along.

“If you send it to us in two vehicles, then you have people saying, ‘Well, the president’s going to veto one and then sign the other, and then we have nothing to hold over this president’s head,’” the House Republican close to leadership said.

Responding to the developments and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s demands that the speaker commit to bringing up a clean funding bill, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel chided the Democratic tactics.
“The speaker has been clear: The House has acted, and now Senate Democrats need to stop hiding,” Steel said. “Will they continue to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security or not?”

At the Senate GOP lunch Tuesday, Sessions made a similar argument. He faulted the GOP’s messaging on the immigration fight and said the public would pin the blame on Democrats for refusing to debate a controversial policy — and shutting down DHS over the matter. Sessions has been adamant that the party should focus on the economic implications of the president’s immigration policies.

“Sen. McConnell has a difficult job, there’s no doubt about that,” Sessions told reporters later. “But I believe that the issue, the constitutional issue, is greater than a lot of people have fully appreciated.”

At the lunch, few Republicans jumped to Sessions’ defense. An outspoken foe of Obama’s immigration policies, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, asked pointed questions about McConnell’s strategy but didn’t criticize the leadership plan, senators said.

And Ted Cruz, the Texas senator and potential presidential candidate, stayed silent and left the lunch before it ended.

Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Sal wrote:There is no Republican party any more.