Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday urged incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to withhold Senate consideration of appointees nominated by President Obama — outside “vital” national security hires — in response to administration action to unilaterally grant temporary legal status and work permits to 4.1 million undocumented immigrants.
“In my view, the majority leader should decline to bring to the floor of the Senate a nomination other than vital national security positions. That is a serious and major step,” the Texas Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The second big check we’ve got is the power of the purse, and we should fund, one at a time, the critical priorities of the federal government.”
Cruz, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, did not directly answer program host Chris Wallace when asked whether Senate Republicans should decline to consider Loretta Lynch, Obama’s pick to succeed Attorney General Eric Holder, if the president declines to back away from his executive action on immigration. Nor did the senator volunteer that he considered Lynch to fall into his acceptable category of presidential nominees important to national security.
Meanwhile, Cruz did not directly call for shutting down the government as he did last year when Obama refused to accept funding legislation that would have kept the lights on in Washington while defunding the Affordable Care Act.
But Cruz signaled his support for a strategy in which Congress would pass a series of targeted bills to fund various government departments, except for the Department of Homeland Security, which finances immigration enforcement. Some House Republicans argue that Obama’s executive action is funded by user fees and isn’t subject to defunding by the Congress.
Cruz said that policy riders pushing back against the president could be attached to funding bills, an approach that is gaining steam among conservatives. Congressional Republicans are vowing to confront Obama over his immigration moves, but most are unwilling to employ a strategy that risks a government shutdown.
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., dismissed Cruz’s claims that Obama’s executive action was unconstitutional and said the whole issue would be moot if House Republicans would approve the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate in June 2013. Although Obama previously said he did not have the authority to take the action he ultimately took this past week, Becerra said Obama “couldn’t change the law” and he didn’t.
“It’s not only legal for the president to take executive action; it’s common,” Becerra said, also on “Fox News Sunday.” “The president is saying, ‘if [Congress] won’t act, I’ll do what I can under the law.’”
“He didn’t grant legal status to a single soul,” Becerra added. “He simply is deferring deportation. All of these folks are still deportable.”
