‘No Conference’

I hope you will sign the letter Rep. Steve Stockman has written to House Speaker John Boehner. In it he argues that the Senate will use any House-passed immigration legislation as a vehicle to get their amnesty legislation to President Obama’s desk. I hope you will sign this letter and show Speaker Boehner that he must ensure that amnesty is not passed through a conference committee.

The letter reads as follows:

“Dear Mr. Speaker:

“‘If we go to conference, we would win.’

That’s Senator Harry Reid’s assessment of the Democrats’ strategy to take one or more Republican bills related to border security or immigration and seek to win in a conference committee.

“Senator Chuck Schumer amplified upon the strategy; ‘the end game strategy is to get to a conference with the Senate (comprehensive) bill by having the House pass a group of bills.’

“The House conferees would, according to Reid’s and Schumer’s strategy, agree to conference the Senate’s bill; resulting in the President signing a bill to award amnesty to millions of illegals.

Beyond Schumer’s belief he can get House Republicans into a conference, there is a serious parliamentary problem in agreeing to conference the bill.

“According to the rules, if a bill goes to conference with one issue committed by the House and many issues committed by the Senate, the only question with respect to the non-House issues is whether how much of the Senate position to adopt. The House goes to conference with no position on any of those questions.

“House Republicans must avoid any actions which could undermine the House’s intention of passing narrowly-focused immigration-related bills.

“Therefore, we respectfully ask that you not bring up any immigration-related bills without a commitment that the House will not conference House bills on immigration-related issues with a comprehensive or multi-issue bill from the Senate.

“Thank you very much for considering our views on this critical issue.”

Phone me if you would like to talk about this

Greg Raven

P.S. Boehner is a slippery eel. Don’t let him get away from you on this one!

Author: Greg Raven

I am deeply concerned about quality of life issues.