The House voted to block President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration Thursday, but lawmakers are also still considering a range of other options, including censuring the president, said Rep. Lamar Smith.
"We're gonna try everything in our power — we're gonna go forwards, really, on all fronts, whether it be a vote to defund, whether it be a lawsuit, might even get into censureship. These are all options that we need to consider. It's important that this is just the beginning, this is not the end,"
Smith told a local radio station.
The Texas lawmaker also said most of his colleagues support the defunding of the president's executive action, though did not elaborate about his specific position on how to approach the spending bill.
"I'd say that a majority of the members of the House, most of my colleagues, want to defund anything to do with the president's executive orders that gave amnesty to 5 million people in the country illegally."
A faction of conservatives in the House have been in favor of using the spending bill to force a confrontation with the president over immigration. Such action would have put the GOP on the path to a government shutdown, a course that the leadership has been keen to avoid.
Late last month, Iowa Rep. Steve King went so far as to say that impeachment is an option to be considered.
"We have constitutional authority to do a string of things. [Impeachment] would be the very last option, but I would not rule it out,"
King said.
After Thursday's vote, however, the leadership is hopeful that the action went far enough to pass a spending bill without a shutdown, and the leadership intends to proceed with the second part of its strategy to counter the president's actions.
The plan is to pass a broad-based spending bill before the Dec. 11 deadline but give only short-term funding to immigration enforcement agencies until the House can address the issue in the New Year.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.