So why doesn’t Speaker Boehner just give us a floor vote on immigration reform already?
He clearly wants to. Yesterday, the Speaker made headlines after speaking at the Middletown Rotary Club in his home district, where he mocked his own caucus for being afraid to pass immigration reform.
“Here’s the attitude. Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard,” Boehner mimicked.
He continued: “We get elected to make choices. We get elected to solve problems and it’s remarkable to me how many of my colleagues just don’t want to … They’ll take the path of least resistance.”
Right. Because Boehner has been such a champion for reform, allowing no votes on real immigration legislation while giving Steve King and the right-wingers multiple opportunities to vote against DACA and deport DREAMers.
If only there was some special power that Boehner had as Speaker of the House that would allow him to call votes on bills he wanted to pass. The votes are there in the House. HR 15, the House immigration bill, now has 199 cosponsors. A Republican lawmaker, Peter King of New York, has just sent Boehner a letter urging action on immigration reform that creates a pathway to citizenship. Dennis Hastert, whose name is on the ‘rule’ that Boehner has been using as an excuse not to push his caucus, joined a whole plethora of Illinois Republicans this week in supporting reform.
And yet, apparently, according to a new memo from Eric Cantor, immigration reform is still not on the House agenda for the spring. So why doesn’t Boehner make some choices and solve some problems — and stop leading from behind?
