Even as Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell advances a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security without any provisions to block President Obama’s executive amnesty, Utah senator Mike Lee called on his colleagues in the House and the Senate to oppose the plan and use their constitutional prerogatives to stop the president.
“We have the means at our disposal to stop that [the president’s executive amnesty],” Lee said in a question-and-answer session at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We have to use the power of the purse. We have to withhold funding.”
McConnell and Senate minority leader Harry Reid have reportedly agreed to vote on a “clean” funding bill for DHS on Friday, and then consider a separate bill to block the executive amnesty. Lee and other conservatives who opposed funding the amnesty likely can’t block it in the Senate, but might bolster Republicans in the House who could still reject the bill.