While everyone was getting ready for Benjamin Netanyahu's speech (you can read my thoughts on that here), John Boehner took the opportunity to capitulate to Democrats:
It was all but inevitable, and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) finally cut his losses on Tuesday, telling House Republicans he will allow a vote on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security without any immigration restrictions.
The "clean" DHS funding bill could come up as early as Tuesday. It is expected to pass with overwhelming support from Democrats and enough House Republicans.
Boehner laid out three paths to his members in a weekly meeting, according to a source in the room: shutting down DHS, another short-term stopgap bill, or the Senate-passed clean DHS bill. He said the first two weren't good options.
"With more active threats coming into the homeland, I don't believe that's an option," Boehner said of a shutdown. "Imagine if, God forbid, another terrorist attack hits the United States."
It effectively ends the Republican threat to use a potential shutdown of DHS to overturn President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, which Boehner promised to fight "tooth and nail" last year with the new GOP majorities in both chambers.
I am so surprised that it ended this way. Who could have predicted? Well, I and a dozen other people predicted exactly this, but anyway, I'm sure the House conservatives feel terribly betrayed.
Some time ago, I heard someone on the radio say that every time she sees "Romeo and Juliet," even though she knows how it ends, she finds herself hoping that Juliet will wake up in time to stop Romeo from drinking the poison, and they'll all live happily ever after. Which is understandable-despite what you know to be true, it's easy to get caught up in the drama. And today, conservatives in the House are kind of like that play-goer, except that they're leaving the theater all angry about how things ended, despite the fact that they've seen the play multiple times already.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. One is that, as I've argued before, Boehner has taken a nearly impossible task and made it even harder through incompetence. Another is that, as Jonathan Bernstein argues today, Boehner is actually being quite clever; these mini-crises pass without much public notice, he gives the crazies a chance to vent with a vote or two, and everything works out fine in the end. Maybe. But I still don't think history will be very kind to this speakership.
