House Speaker John Boehner called together lawmakers on Tuesday to sell a
two-part GOP strategy to counter President Barack Obama's immigration order, but conservatives do not appear to be buying it.
According to
Politico, conservatives are meeting on Wednesday and are already expressing their dissatisfaction with the leadership's proposals.
The first part of the plan would combine a broad-based spending bill to fund the government through September 2015 with a stopgap spending measure to fund immigration enforcement agencies for a shorter term.
"I think a lot of us, in discussion, we don't see the purpose of having a long CR. Why not do it the first day we're in session?" Louisiana Rep. John Fleming told Politico.
"I'm not sure it's going to pass the way they are proposing it. I think it's likely they are going to have to improve it if they want it to pass."
In the Senate, a number of lawmakers were also bashing the House leadership's proposals.
GOP Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, David Vitter of Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah are all critical of the phased approach to the spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution. They prefer an immediate defunding of Obama's executive action.
"The House needs to do the right thing and send over the short term bill with the defund language," Lee spokesman Brian Phillips told Politico.
Sessions was also clear about his skepticism of the House plan.
"I'm worried that it's not going to be effective," he said, according to Politico.
"You just can't be bobbing and weaving on this," Sessions told reporters. "This is not a matter to be discussed at some point. It's just unacceptable aggrandizement of power that Congress has an institutional duty to reject."
Vitter, according to Politico, added, "Make no mistake, sending a bill to the Senate without first making an attempt to include defund language is telling the American people that you support Obama's executive amnesty. That would be a slap in the face to the voters who sent a message last month by electing Republican majorities in Congress."
Boehner's attempt to sell the plan was never expected to be easy, particularly given the threats by conservatives to use the spending bill to force a government shutdown.
He has already been trying to convince them that the
GOP would suffer most politically if it pursued such a course of action.
"For me, something that is shorter term allows us to hopefully deal with a Senate that is more negotiable. I'm probably leaning no [on the current House plan]," North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows told Politico.
"I think in terms of the CR omnibus, without a limitation language, there are not enough votes. I'm not on the whip team but listening to a number of my colleagues, there is more than enough concern."
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