Many Republicans worry about the politics of a fight over the Department of Homeland Security budget, Joel Gehrke reports. They think that including restrictions on funding for the president’s recent actions on illegal immigration could lead to a filibuster or veto, and Republicans would then get blamed for shutting down the department at a time of heightened concern about terrorism. They think they would get blamed even though they would have voted to fund the department, and even though much of the department would keep running even without a new congressional enactment.

But if that’s what they’re worried about, isn’t there a simple solution? Pass a bill funding everything in the Department of Homeland Security except for the immigration service. Then pass a bill funding the immigration service but blocking any funding to implement the president’s order. I think it would be hard for the Democrats to justify filibustering or vetoing the first bill. If they block the second bill, it doesn’t endanger counter-terrorism because the first bill already funded it. It doesn’t even much affect the immigration service, which is mostly funded by fees. But Republicans get to avoid any complicity with an immigration order they rightly consider unconstitutional.

I think it’s now clear that including the entire department rather than narrowly targeting the immigration service does not give the Republicans added leverage; it reduces their leverage. So split the issues.