House Republican leadership doesn’t seem to have the votes right now to pass Speaker John Boehner’s omnibus spending bill, and they just lost another major conservative with tons of influence in the House.
As the leadership postponed the vote and put the House in recess subject to the call of the chair, presumably because they don’t have the votes, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) came out in public opposition to the bill because it funds “King Obama’s amnesty.” In a news release, Blackburn writes:
Unfortunately, this spending package fails to take the necessary actions to defund the President’s lawless amnesty. As a result, I cannot vote in support of this measure. It is not fair that hard-working taxpayers in Tennessee will now have to compete for jobs with illegal aliens to whom the President is unilaterally granting work permits at a time when our workforce participation rate sits at a 36-year low and more than 90 million Americans are out of work. That is why I fought for and passed my bill in the House this summer to freeze the President’s unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. King Obama’s amnesty is turning America into a lawless open borders society.
Blackburn’s strong opposition to the bill due to the amnesty funding is notable since Obama himself went to her district this week to promote the executive amnesty action.