The fight to
fund the Department of Homeland Security has come to a standstill amid Democrats' refusal to vote for anything beyond a clean bill, but many conservative lawmakers are willing to suffer a shutdown for the sake of forcing a showdown over immigration.
According to
The Hill, conservatives do not believe the Republican Party will experience political fallout from such a course and hope that it will force the hand of Democrats even though the leadership is keen to avoid a shutdown.
"I'm just not that scared of sticking to principles and filling campaign promises that we made back home, irrespective of what leadership tells us to do here," Florida GOP Rep. Curt Clawson told The Hill.
"It's worth having this fight," Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar told The Hill.
Some believe that because it's just one government department, there would be less of a public reaction than the October 2013 shutdown that saw Republicans suffer in the opinion polls.
"The shutdown would be extremely limited. It would be only in one department, with only a small percentage of people in that one department.
"But again, nobody has a goal here of shutting anything down. The goal here is to get the president to get right with the Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold," Louisiana GOP Rep. John Fleming told The Hill.
But many in the GOP, including the leadership, are intent on avoiding a shutdown at all costs, believing the party won in November on the promise that it would govern effectively.
"This strategy was never designed to succeed. Everybody knows that. So now we have to face the reality and do what the American public sent us here to do, which is to govern and fund the Homeland Security department," Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Charlie Dent told The Hill.
He added that it would be unwise given the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and terrorism.
Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk also thinks a shutdown would backfire for Republicans.
"It’s not livable. It's not acceptable," Kirk said of a potential shutdown, according to The Hill. "When you're in the majority, you have to govern. You have to govern responsibly. And shutdowns are not responsible."
Regardless, negotiations will come down to the wire — Congress is on a 10-day recess, leaving lawmakers just days to thrash out a solution before the Feb. 28 deadline when the current funding arrangement expires.
But Dent said he believed there would still be plenty of time to craft a solution.
"We have time to do it," Dent said of the DHS funding, according to The Hill. "Leadership on both sides needs to make a decision about what the path forward is. Once they determine that path forward, it shouldn't take long to enact the legislation."