House Rules Committee Blocks Anti-Amnesty Amendment

The House Rules Committee blocked Representative Mick Mulvaney’s (R-S.C.) amendment to the 2015 spending last night that would have defunded for President Obama’s executive amnesty. The House will vote on the full spending bill later today, including full funding for the President’s amnesty.

After his amendment was defeated, Rep. Mulvaney said he was “moved by the support of my colleagues: 66 of whom co-sponsored the amendment in less than 24 hours.”

Unfortunately, my amendment was disallowed, and as a result we will not have the opportunity to vote on it on the floor. That is disheartening, especially when nearly 30 percent of our conference supported the amendment. I believe very strongly that members of Congress should be afforded the opportunity to amend bills instead of having to take a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on a 1,600-page bill. I look forward to exploring alternative avenues to stop this constitutional overreach by the president and his administration. To that larger point, whether you agree or disagree with what the president did on immigration, we should all be concerned about the manner in which the president acted. None of us benefit from legislating-by-executive-order. And the House should be taking all steps it can to send that message very clearly. That is what my amendment was about. I am disappointed it was killed without a vote.

Republican leadership has indicated that the amendment would come up as its own bill within the first two weeks of the new Congress. Rules Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said, “Mr. Mulvaney has given us an amendment that works perfectly well,” adding that he will “guarantee” that the Rules Committee “in the new Congress, in the first two weeks,” would have a meeting to put that legislation on the House floor.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the No. 2 House Republican who controls the floor schedule, supports bringing the so-called “Mulvaney amendment” back to the Rules Committee for full chamber consideration within the first weeks of the 114th Congress, according to a spokesman. Although, the amendment as a stand-alone bill is unlikely to be signed into law by Pres. Obama.

For more on this story, read Roll Call