Time is now for GOP
It’s a make-or-break moment for Mike Coffman and other Republicans who want to force a vote.
WASHINGTON» Colorado U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman said he and about two dozen like-minded Republican lawmakers have built enough support to force a vote in the U.S. House on a raft of immigration measures — including proposals that would protect from deportation young immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children.
Whether Coffman and his colleagues actually move forward with that plan is another question. A divided House Republican caucus is scheduled to meet Thursday in a last-ditch effort to hash out an intra-party compromise on immigration before Coffman and his colleagues try their endaround of House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders.
“There’s still hope that Republican leadership can negotiate something to come to the floor before we have to move forward,” the Aurora Republican said in an interview with The Denver Post last week.
Under House rules, lawmakers can bypass leadership and force a floor vote on legislation if they can marshal the support of at least 218 House lawmakers — the bare majority of the 435-member House. In this case more than 20 Republicans have joined with nearly every Democrat in supporting a so-called “discharge petition” on immigration.
Two more Democrats joined the effort this week — putting the number of supporters at 215, just three shy of the minimum number.
Coffman insisted there are enough Republicans waiting in the wings to get them to at least 218 if Thursday’s negotiation hits a dead end.
“If there’s not an agreement (this week), then we do have the votes to step forward and get to the 218 — which is 25 Republicans and the rest of the Democrats,” Coffman said.
He claimed there were several lawmakers, whom he declined to name, who support the discharge petition but who have not publicly declared their support.
If the discharge petition succeeds, it would trigger a so-called “queen of the hill” vote on four bills aimed at addressing the future of an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which protected young immigrants from deportation.
Each of the measures is different, with varying approaches on what to do about DACA recipients and border security. The proposal that receives the most votes — the queen of the hill — would be one that moves forward.
Trump moved to dismantle the DACA program last year, but its demise has been halted by legal challenges. As of September, there were about 690,000 DACA recipients nationwide, including roughly 15,500 in Colorado, according to federal authorities.
Congress has stalled in its efforts to address the issue through legislation. The current debate probably is the last chance for federal lawmakers to do anything about DACA or immigration before the 2018 election.
In trying to reach at least 218 supporters of the discharge petition, Coffman is unlikely to get help from Colorado’s three other Republicans in the House.
U.S. Reps. Ken Buck, of Windsor, Doug Lamborn, of Colorado Springs, and Scott Tipton, of Cortez, all said they would not sign the discharge petition.
“The congressman supports a compassionate and commonsense solution for the children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, but he also believes that addressing the underlying issues contributing to illegal immigration, including securing the borders, must be a part of the solution,” Kelsey Mix, a Tipton spokeswoman, said in a statement.
“The discharge petition and ‘queen of the hill’ process do not of guarantee solutions to both those issues,” Mix said.
One lingering question, however, is whether Trump even would sign an immigration bill should one make it through the House and Senate and then to his desk.
“I think we have to move forward and do the best we can, and the president is just going to have to decide what to do when he gets the bill,” Coffman said. “But I would think if we had border security and DACA, then he would sign the bill.”
He added: “What is interesting about the president — he campaigned against DACA, but when he got into office, he really wanted to look the other way and just not deal with it.”