An outside group linked with House Republican leadership plans to spend $400,000 in an effort to push GOP congressmen into offering their support to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
Politico reported Monday.
It is the latest salvo in what is become a bitter intra-Republican Party war over the DHS budget.
The nonprofit
American Action Network (AAN) is airing an ad in three states — Kansas, Oklahoma, and Ohio — urging conservative Republican Reps. Tim Huelskamp (Kansas), Jim Bridenstine (Oklahoma), and Jim Jordan (Ohio) to back funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
The 30-second spot is expected to run at least 50 times in each incumbent Republican's district on Tuesday and Wednesday as the House is expected to take up a DHS spending bill.
According to AAN, the ad campaign by House conservatives is the start of a larger effort to help Republican leaders pass "center-right" legislation.
The American Action Network says that in coming months it plans to spend millions of dollars to contact and educate voters.
The move, according to Politico, "appears designed to give [House Speaker John] Boehner cover to end the months-long impasse over Homeland Security funding."
Jordan is the leader of the
House Freedom Caucus, which led the charge last week in stopping Boehner’s plan to fund DHS for three weeks.
Huelskamp has clashed repeatedly with Boehner and other Republican leaders, while Bridenstine opposed even the seven-day DHS funding bill that ultimately passed last week.
The Oklahoma lawmaker argued that it does nothing to reverse President Obama’s executive amnesty plans for millions of illegal immigrants — the issue at the very center of the DHS funding dispute.
Along with the television ads, AAN has paid for two days of national radio ads that will run on the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity shows.
The minute-long ads mention ISIS repeatedly and exhort listeners to call their congressional representative and ask them to "protect America and fund Homeland Security."
"Our safety must come first," the narrator says.
The American Action Network also is using digital advertisements to pressure nine GOP members to vote for DHS funding. Targets of that campaign reportedly include Reps. Raul Labrador of Idaho; Morgan Griffith of Virginia; Mark Meadows of North Carolina; Ted Yoho of Florida; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Mick Mulvaney and Tom Rice of South Carolina; and Jody Hice and Barry Loudermilk of Georgia.
It remains to be seen whether the ads will enable Boehner and his GOP leadership team to pick up enough conservative Republican votes to win passage of a DHS funding bill — a bill that in essence represents a victory for Obama over conservatives on the amnesty issue.
At least in the short run, this outcome is almost certain to widen the gulf between Boehner's leadership team and conservatives, who protest that they need no lectures from leadership on the importance of national security.
They say that by passing the "clean" bill — one which contains funding for amnesty and is stripped of any other riders against it — the Republican leadership in the House and Senate would be caving to the Democrats and giving in to Obama administration "blackmail."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.