Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi could be gaining leverage despite the electoral trouncing Democrats suffered on Election Day, as Republican House leaders face the prospect of turning to her for help in avoiding another government shutdown in about a week's time,
Politico reported.
Far from uniting behind Speaker John Boehner, some 30 to 40 staunch conservatives are threatening to vote against the leadership's government-funding plan to demonstrate their displeasure with President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.
So far, Pelosi is opposed to the Republican funding bill because it allocates no money to the Department of Homeland Security in protest over the administration's immigration policies,
The New York Times reported.
The GOP leadership had planned a vote on funding much of the rest of the government and another vote, to allow conservatives to let off steam, on a bill nullifying Obama's executive order blocking certain deportations. But conservatives, assuming that the Democratic-controlled Senate will take no notice of such a measure, are not falling into line.
Some conservatives are thinking about embedding a bill opposing deportation exemptions into the government funding bill, Politico reported.
The Speaker would need Pelosi's Democratic votes to pass a government funding bill, should as few as 18 Republicans desert him. The more conservative-leaning the spending bill, though, the less likely it will be to garner Pelosi's backing, according to Politico.
If Boehner is denied support from GOP conservatives as well as from Pelosi's Democrats, he may have no choice but to withdraw the funding plan and go with a three-month, short-term extension for all government spending.
That would set the stage for a fresh funding battle in mid-March, when Republican leaders trust the power of the hard-line conservatives will be diluted by the pool of new GOP members, according to Politico.
Republicans leaders remain keen to avoid another spending crisis and would like to demonstrate that they can effectively run Congress.
"We’re three weeks away from having a majority in both houses; we're going to have the largest Republican majority in the House in 90 years," Florida Republican Rep. Dennis Ross told The Times. "I think that we have to use this constructively."
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