by CHQ Staff
Principled limited government constitutional conservative Representative Jim Jordan was on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday morning and he exposed a dirty little secret that the establishment would like to hide from the 70+ percent of Americans who want the strict immigration enforcement that President Trump promised during the 2016 campaign.
What Rep. Jordan said was this: “…if our leadership had put the same whip effort behind that immigration legislation, Chairman Goodlette’s legislation, it would have passed.”
The legislation to which Jordan referred is H.R. 4760, the Securing America’s Future Act often referred to as “the Goodlatte bill.”
The bill was introduced in January by Chairman Goodlatte, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), House Judiciary Committee Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) to bolster enforcement of existing immigration law, makes important reforms to our legal immigration programs, secure the border, and provide a legislative solution for the current beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The Goodlatte bill was far from perfect, but it earned the support of many conservatives because it came the closest to covering all four pillars of President Trump’s immigration reform plan: building the Wall, ending chain migration, ending the visa lottery and giving legal status to the recipients of Obama’s unconstitutional DACA program.
The Goodlatte bill was defeated last Thursday because 41 Republicans joined with all of the Democrats and voted against it. Here is the list courtesy of our friends at the Washington Examiner.
There were a handful of Republicans who are stalwart opponents of amnesty, such as our friends Rep. Steve King and Rep. Louie Gohmert, who voted NO on principle because they are opposed to any form of amnesty for illegal aliens.
However, many of the 41 GOP NO votes were from the open borders RINOs who knew Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was going to offer a pro-amnesty, weak borders bill as a “compromise” and they could get what they want in the bill by joining Democrats and bargaining with Ryan and his leadership team of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Whip Steve Scalise and his Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry.
And sure enough, as soon as the Goodlatte bill went down Ryan, McCarthy, Scalise and McHenry pulled the “compromise” bill from the House calendar and started making deals and working on Republicans to support it.
This is known as “whipping” the vote and it is something they did not do for the Goodlatte bill, the House Republican leaders simply stood by and let the bill that would have implemented the Republican President’s policies go down in flames through lack of action.
As Jim Jordan explained to Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan:
…the mandate from the 2016 election was real clear; the American people made Donald Trump president, made Republicans the majority in the House and the Senate, to build the border security wall, stop chain migration, end the sanctuary city policy, reform our asylum laws, get rid of the visa lottery and deal with the DACA population. That legislation consistent with that mandate and the promise he made to the American people was on the floor just three days ago and fell a few votes short of passing, got 193 votes. [That should] be the focus…
As our friends at the Eagle Forum said in a recent email to their grassroots conservative activists, “if the ‘compromise [amnesty for illegal aliens] bill’ passes, this will not fare well for Republicans in the upcoming November elections. If Democrats gain control of the House, a much more liberal bill without any border security will be inevitable.
Republicans would not have been in this situation if we had true Conservative Leadership in the House. Speaker Ryan, Leader McCarthy, and Whip Scalise have all had a hand in allowing this fight to become so moderate. This is the perfect time to encourage support for Rep. Jim Jordan for Speaker.
Our grassroots advocates are very upset by the illegal immigration crisis and are confused by the flip-flop of Congress on this issue. They will be motivated to voice their support for new leadership, specifically for Jim Jordan who will go to great lengths to secure our border.”
If Republicans want to win in November, they must make clear to voters that their choice for Speaker is someone other than current Republican Leaders, someone who is fighting against DC’s Swamp culture and is consistently advocating for Trump’s agenda. Click this link to add your name to the list of conservative leaders demanding a change in the House leadership by electing Jim Jordan Speaker.
I am against any bill that provides amnesty in any way shape or form to those have broken our laws and entered America illegally. Deport them all.
In point of fact, HR 4760 was known for many months as “The Gang of Four Amnesty bill” until some Conservatives and some previously anti-Amnesty orgs got behind it, whence it became “The Goodlatte Bill”.