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Cancelling Calendar Days with Immigration Reform Left to Go? Are House Republicans Serious?

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A new Politico article today reveals that even though House Republicans only have 19 working days left in the calendar to get things like immigration reform done, they still don’t have their act together:

For the first time in months, House Republicans are facing no immediate cataclysmic deadlines, and GOP leaders are struggling to come up with an agenda to fill the 19 legislative days that are left in 2013.

Need evidence? The House votes Monday evening and will finish its work week Wednesday. After that, the House is out of session until Nov. 12. Internally, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and senior Republicans aren’t discussing coming back early from the scheduled recess, but instead, they are wondering if they’ll cancel some of the remaining days in session.

Remember this the next time a Republican tries to claim that there’s not enough time to pass immigration reform through the House this year.  As Barbara Morrill noted in her post, “Who’s more overworked than you? House Republicans. No, really!” at DailyKos:

A little Monday morning laugh: October was an “exhausting” and “grueling” month for House Republicans and now they’re “struggling” to come up with things to do in the 19—count ’em, 19—days they have left to work this year

Seriously?

House GOPers apparently have so much time that they don’t know what to do with it all, hence the possibility of canceling session dates.

Also, despite the fact that this month’s fiscal negotiations completely blew up in their faces, House GOPers are apparently still not over their anti-Obamacare obsession, and plan to devote/waste even more time to that. More Politico:

The future of Obamacare — and how far to go in trying to undo the 2010 Affordable Care Act — remains at center stage for House Republicans…it appears that the House will — once again — vote to delay portions of Obamacare, setting up another fight with Senate Democrats and the White House.

Republicans will also spend the remaining days of 2013 pushing for Sebelius to step down over the botched rollout of the Obamacare website.

House Republicans have hid behind every excuse in the world–President Obama, the Democrats, the Hastert rule, and now the legislative calendar–as a “reason” not to take action on immigration reform, even though the entire world knows that House Republicans will be the only ones to blame if immigration fails to pass.

We’ll spell it out for them.  The way forward seems obvious and common-sense to us, but we do realize that this is the House GOP we’re talking about.  The House has some time left on its legislative calendar this year.  Meanwhile, there’s a major legislative issue (immigration reform) that’s been waiting all year to be taken up by the House.  All House Republican leaders have to do is give it a vote.

If Republicans even think about the alternative—dithering around and trying to run out the clock, or using the time for more bluster against Obamacare, or cancelling days when the fates of 11 million people are still waiting to be addressed…there’s no excuse they could give to Latino, Asian, moderate, minority, and immigrant voters that will alleviate the pain that’s in store for them.