During an appearance on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Speaker John Boehner said that he is “certainly” willing to let federal funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expire this month if a congressional standoff that is threatening the agency’s appropriation continues.
Echoing conservative arguments in favor of the House-passed appropriation that prohibits money being spent on Obama’s unconstitutional “executive amnesty” Boehner said, “The House has done its job under the Constitution,” he said. “It's time for the Senate to do their job.”
After those of us watch the program picked ourselves up off the floor and cleaned up the coffee we spilled in our astonishment that the Speaker was actually arguing the case against Obama from a constitutional perspective, Boehner got even better.
“Senate Democrats are the ones putting us in this precarious position,” Boehner said. “It's up to Senate Democrats to get their act together.”
As Cristina Marcos of The Hill reported, many of the conservative lawmakers who most want to aggressively challenge President Obama's executive actions on immigration think that if push comes to shove, a shutdown will be worth the fight – and apparently Speaker Boehner agrees.
And what’s more at this point, they don't think there will be any electoral consequences if there is a shutdown.
"I'm just not that scared of sticking to principles and filling campaign promises that we made back home, irrespective of what leadership tells us to do here," said Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.), who delivered the Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union speech.
"It's worth having this fight," said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).
"The shutdown would be extremely limited. It would be only in one department, with only a small percentage of people in that one department. But again, nobody has a goal here of shutting anything down. The goal here is to get the president to get right with the Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold," said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) according to Marcos’ reporting.
Of course some of the usual voices in Republican surrender caucus, such as Rep. Charlie Dent and Sen. Mark Kirk quickly contradicted Boehner – using the usual “we were sent here to govern” myth.
But others adopted an even more aggressive posture. "Forget about recess," Marcos reports Rep. Raul Labrador said at an event held with the Heritage Foundation last week. "Imagine what the American people will think about our party, the Republican Party, if we stay here for a week, we decide not to go on recess, and we actually fight for the principles that the American people sent us here to fight for."
Labrador maintained, according to Marcos, that aggressively challenging the president is good politics for Republicans, who just started the new Congress with a new Senate majority and the largest House majority since the early 20th century.
"It's pretty simple: When you fight for what you believe in, you win elections," Labrador said.
“Get their act together” is a somewhat unartful term to describe the Democrats putting our national security at risk to protect Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, but if Speaker Boehner has finally come around to understanding that when you fight for what you believe in, you win elections, we will take it.
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