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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Masked by the spectacular news from the Supreme Court, and by a larger margin than the conservative alternative, the house rejected the second, moderate, GOP immigration bill, 121-300!

If it had passed it would have been an exercise in futility because, as Trump tweeted today they “[they should vote for it] EVEN THOUGH THE DEMS WON’T LET IT PASS IN THE SENATE.”

As The Hill reported:

The measure won far fewer GOP votes than a more hard-line measure rejected last week in a 193-231 vote.

Only 121 Republicans backed it, compared to 193 for the earlier measure. Two Republicans did not cast votes on Wednesday, while 112 Republicans voted against it.

It wasn’t for lack of sweetening the bill that it failed.  As reported:

The bill also earmarked $25 billion for Trump’s border wall and other security measures, ended the diversity visa lottery program and imposed limits on family-based migration.

As has been pointed out in comments on this site, this money was authorized and not funded.

The bill included a conservative proposal to end family separations at the border, an issue that has inflamed tensions.

The proposal would rescind what’s known as the Flores settlement, which establishes minimum standards and a 20-day limit for detention of minors.

I wonder, how do you rescind an order that was part of a court settlement?

Conservative opposition centered in part on the Dreamers part of the measure, as some lawmakers saw providing a pathway to citizenship for those immigrants as “amnesty.”

Now, where would anyone would have gotten the idea that this bill was an amnesty bill but, hey, conspiracy nuts abound in today’s world.

And… since it’s never too late to assign blame elsewhere The Hill had this:

Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in September instigated much of the immigration work.

You’d have thought that the fact that Obama’s DACA program was manifestly unconstitutional would have been brought up but, well, I guess it is what it is.

Under the heading of ‘hope springs eternal’ or maybe the heading is “I just have to find a way to slit my own throat!” there was this:

Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) — a conservative negotiator of the legislation who ultimately voted “no” on the measure — said he believes there were a number of problems with the bill, but feels they should continue talks to reach a consensus — despite Wednesday’s failure.

“I think there are 223 Republicans or 224 Republicans that can get to a yes, so now we need to work on that,” he told reporters.

Then again, there are a few pragmatists that figure there are bigger fish to fry:

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who said he was unsurprised by the outcome, signaled the GOP is ready to move on.

You know, if there’s — if there is a bill that gets 218 Republicans, obviously that’s something we’d be very interested in.

Rep. Scalise concluded his thoughts with:

If it happens somewhere along the way that’s fine, but obviously there are a lot of other things that we have to work on to get our economy back on track and keep our country moving forward.

Maybe the GOP House members dodged a bullet with the death of this bill. Maybe also their attempts to salvage DACA and anger a lot of their voters came to naught and there are no consequences for trying.  Or, maybe, as the squishes seem to think, they’ve just handed a lot of votes to the Democrats this mid-term.

Personally, I think this failure saved the GOP house members from themselves.  They would have established themselves as passing something that wouldn’t have passed the Senate and, therefore, wouldn’t have benefited them at all but would have angered their base.  Now, those that did vote for the bill should be hoping that it gave them the edge with their voters that they expected or hope that those voters will somehow believe that They were against it before they were for it! or vice-versa.

All-in-all, between the Immigration bill failure, the ruling in the Janus case, and the Kennedy retirement I’d say this has been a pretty awesome day for the GOP, conservatives, and the country.