House Republicans drop their attempt at sneaking an amnesty amendment into the National Defense Authorization Act

  A couple of days ago America’s Watchtower covered the House Republicans’ attempt at slipping an amnesty amendment into the NDAA. My biggest problem with what the Republicans were trying to do was not with the amendment itself but rather with the backhanded way the Republicans were trying to sneak this legislation through the Congress on an unrelated bill so there would be little to no debate on the issue.

  I firmly believe that any and all amendments which are offered to a piece of legislation should be related to that legislation and something like this should either be brought up for a vote on its own merit or as part of a related bill.

  It appears as though enough people have contacted the House Republicans and expressed the same opinion.

  Yesterday Jeff Duncan, who co-sponsored the ENLIST Act, has withdrawn his name from the list of co-sponsors because he does not feel this should be added as an amendment to an unrelated measure. Here is part of what he had to say:

An article came out last night highlighting a new possible strategy for the House GOP Leadership to push through immigration reform. The article was the first I’d heard of this plan and mentions possibly borrowing language from a stand-alone military service bill that I’d supported in concept, and sneaking parts of it into the upcoming NDAA bill. I have a problem with this strategy for several reasons:

1) I’ve never been okay with Nancy Pelosi, the House GOP Leadership, or anyone else pulling a fast one on the American people by trying to sneak unrelated language into a larger bill. It’s not transparent, and it’s exactly why Americans don’t trust Washington.

I was willing to have a conversation about the possibility of allowing some of the children who came here with their parents illegally to earn citizenship through military service. But that conversation should have been debated as part of a stand-alone bill that could not be conferenced with a broader bill, and then even only after we had made progress on enforcing our current immigration laws.

I will not allow Washington to pull their sneaky tricks on the public, so I am withdrawing the conditional support I had for the stand-alone military service legislation and have warned leadership that if they attempt to add this language as an amendment to the NDAA that I will vote against the entire bill for that reason alone. Hope this clears things up, and makes it perfectly clear where I stand.

  And today we have learned that Buck McKeon will not allow the ENLIST Act to be offered as an amendment to the NDAA:

“I do not intend to include the ‘ENLIST’ Act in the proposed National Defense Authorization Act that I will submit to the Armed Services Committee next month. I have reached this conclusion without regard to my views on the underlying policy, but because I do not believe that the Chairman’s mark should be the original venue for this debate,” Rep. Buck McKeon, the chairman of HASC, said in a statement.

 

“Over the past several days I have heard from Members on and off the committee on both sides of this issue. They have made sound arguments and raised valid concerns, and my colleagues and friends Congressmen Denham and Coffman deserve a great deal of credit for responsibly raising the matter. This is an important issue that I know will continue to be debated going forward,” he added.

  Both of these men support the ENLIST Act but are now expressing opposition to adding it as an amendment to an unrelated bill. I happen to think that these men are talking out of both sides of their mouths because I think if they had not faced the backlash they would have been perfectly happy sneaking this legislation through the Congress. I agree with this decision but question their motives.

  This is a small victory because while in the end the ENLIST Act might pass on its own at least there will be a debate on the issue, and that is how it should be.