The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday offered by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) that would prevent the executive branch from exempting classes of illegal aliens from deportation. The bill passed, 219-to-197, mostly along party lines, but several Republicans voted against the bill or neither for nor against the bill. The vote was a meaningless symbolic vote pushed by House GOP Leaders in an attempt to appease anti-amnesty Republicans.
Seven Republicans voted against the bill, including Reps. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Valadao (R-Calif.), Coffman (R-Colo.), Gohmert (R-Texas) and Stutzman (R-Ind.). Three Democrats, Barrow (D-Ga.), McIntyre (D-N.C.), and Peterson (D-Minn.), voted for the bill. Reps. King (R-Ia.), Labrador (R-Id.), and Gosar (R-Ariz.) voted present.
NumbersUSA choose not to grade the vote and sent the following message to Congressional offices before the vote occured:
The three million Americans NumbersUSA represents expect their elected Members of Congress to take effective action to stop President Obama's unconstitutional amnesty. They see the vote on the Yoho bill for exactly what it is: a meaningless gesture designed to distract the public and give cover to House Republicans who have no intention of fighting to protect their own constitutional powers or for Americans' wages and job opportunities.
House Republicans have promised repeatedly to do everything in their power to stop Obama's illegal amnesty. Speaker Boehner promised to fight "tooth and nail" to reverse this lawless action. The Yoho bill does nothing to keep these promises. Even if the Yoho bill had a path to enactment, and even if the bill weren't riddled with loopholes, Americans understand that amending the law to reign in a lawless President is a pointless endeavor.
Instead, Americans expect Congress to use its constitutional power of the purse effectively to prevent President Obama from carrying out his illegal amnesty. Thus, NumbersUSA will be announcing early next week that we will be scoring as a vote for amnesty any appropriations package that fails to include a rider to defund the amnesty.
In the meantime, NumbersUSA will NOT be scoring today's vote on the meaningless Yoho bill.
