House Republicans voted to fund the Department of Homeland Security, along with a series of amendments that President Obama does not get to use the money to fund his most recent ‘adult amnesty’ by executive order, as well as the DACA program for younger immigrants.
The next hurdle: a filibuster by Senate Democrats. Just as House Republicans gained support by dividing the language defunding Obama’s actions into separate amendments, Senate Democrats will try to weaken Republicans by rolling them into one, a Senate Republican aide predicts. There are some Republicans who will vote to withhold funding for the most recent orders, but not for the DACA program. Democrats will likely file a single motion to strip all of the amendments out of the base DHS funding bill — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has already said that they should pass a “clean” bill without any of the anti-amnesty language.
Senate Republicans should be able to muster the 51 votes needed to table that motion, even if some vulnerable members of the conference fear that this tabling vote will be portrayed in political attack ads as tantamount to a vote against DACA.
“After we table their amendment, we’ll need to get cloture (60 votes) to proceed to a vote on final passage,” a conservative Senate aide explains to NRO. “That’s when they can filibuster. We feel good there are enough Democrats who will not walk this plank for the president and the Senate will send the bill to the president’s desk for him to veto. If they do hold (unlikely), and we can’t get to 60, then we’re stuck on the bill. Nothing we can do at that point to get it passed.”