…for the Party of No to get out of the way and let legislation happen. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) had this to say through her spokesman Drew Hammill about her fellow Democrats’ insistence on shutting down DHS* in favor of protecting President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional “executive actions” concerning immigration:
With only four legislative days left until the Republican Homeland Security Shutdown, Speaker Boehner made it clear that he has no plan to avoid a government shutdown. The speaker’s reliance on talking points and finger-pointing was a sad reflection of the fact that the Tea Party continues to hold the gavel as they insist on their futile anti-immigrant grandstanding.
Government shutdown. Not DHS shutdown. No exaggeration there. Pelosi’s proxy statement more honestly reads
With only four legislative days left until the Senate Democrats’ Homeland Security Shutdown, Minority Leader Pelosi made it clear that neither she nor her Senate colleagues have a plan to avoid a department shutdown. The Minority Leader’s reliance on talking points and finger-pointing was a sad reflection of the fact that the Democratic Party insists on its futile illegal immigrant grandstanding and vote pandering.
Note, too, that the Democrats are willing to hold hostage American homeland safety against preservation of those “executive actions”—”hostage” being their term, not Republicans’.
*Never mind, in the Democrats’ panic mongering, that DHS won’t, in fact, shut down in any substantive way: all the protection forces, from TSA to border control will remain on the job. They just won’t be paid on time, courtesy of the Senate Democrats’ constant filibuster of the House-passed bill that fully funds DHS.
SEN Harry Reid IS the Party of No all by himself.
Last session he sat on over 30 spending bills sent by the House and would not even allow debater on them, much less negotiation that might have lead to compromise. Instead he served as the Gatekeeper to prevent the democrats from having to go on record with their opinions.
Now he is serving as Gatekeeper to protect his Dear Leader from embarrassment, again, and to keep his fellow democrats from having to go on record in support an immigration policy executive action that polls show the majority of the American People do not support.
Business as usual by the democrats in congress.
Reid and President Obama are certainly the leaders of the Party of No; however, their fellow Democrats in the Senate could have overruled Reid and forced votes/debates, had they been so inclined.
That they chose not to do so makes them members in good standing of the Party of No.
Eric Hines