Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is warning House Republicans against adding provisions to block President Obama’s executive amnesty to the “clean” Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill the Senate is expected to pass.
“We’ve heard all kinds of rumors that the House was going to take our fully-funded bill and send it back with a lot of riders on it. It is a waste of time. We will not allow a conference to take place. It won’t happen,” Reid told reporters at a joint press conference with the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday.
The Senate leader was referring to the process that would need to take place to reconcile legislation differing from one chamber to the other.
“If they send over the bill with all the riders in it, they shut down the government. We are not going to play games,” he said.
“They can put all the riders on it they want and we will not allow that,” the Nevada Democrat added.
Congress is facing a Friday midnight deadline to fund DHS or the department would shut down. Republicans have been trying to use the DHS appropriations bill to defund President Obama’s executive amnesty.
Last month the House passed a DHS funding bill that achieved that end. However in the Senate, Democrats prevented debate on the House-passed bill for much of the month of February.
This week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) moved to have a vote on a DHS bill free of the immigration provisions, succumbing to the demands of Democrats. House Republicans have said they want to continue the fight.
Pelosi, meanwhile, chastised Republicans as needing to “grow up,” accused them of playing games and engaging in a “major amateur hour.”
“The gamesmanship should end. The Texas court — while I disagree with the court decision — gave them a face-saving way to just end this,” she said referring to a federal judge’s decision to temporarily block the executive amnesty from going forward while a lawsuit challenging the actions works its way through the courts.
She further quoted Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who recently wrote, “We can’t allow the Department of Homeland Security not to be funded. People think we’re crazy. There are terrorist attacks all over the world, and we’re talking about closing down Homeland Security. This is like living in the world of the crazy people.”
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