GOP congressman: ‘Clean’ DHS funding bill ‘probably’ arrives in House Wednesday

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) suggested Tuesday that the Senate-passed “clean” bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will make it to the House floor as early as Wednesday and no later than Thursday.

“I think a clean bill comes back from the Senate, probably arrives tomorrow, no later than the next day, and I think it’ll pass the House. I think it’ll go on the floor. There will be a significant bipartisan majority in favor of funding Homeland Security,” Cole said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

GOP leaders have not explicitly promised a vote on the clean bill yet, Cole said, but he explained it’s “obvious” the House’s next step is to vote on it, funding the DHS through Sept. 30.

Asked if that will be a problem for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Cole said, “It shouldn’t be.”

{mosads}“John Boehner has fought the good fight every step of the way. It’s no mystery. The president started this fight,” he said. 

More than two dozen GOP governors have “won the opening round of a legal battle,” Cole said, through a lawsuit that has temporarily halted Obama’s executive orders on immigration from last November.

“When you’ve won, every now and then, it’s time to pull your chips away from the table and walk away from the game,” Cole said. “Some of our colleagues have a hard time understanding that.”

Congress must fund the DHS by midnight on Friday or the department will shut down. Lawmakers late on Feb. 27 passed a one-week DHS funding bill, which Republicans had hoped would yield a compromise. 

Senate Democrats on Monday, however, blocked a bill that would form a conference committee between the House and Senate. The upper chamber then voted to send the “clean” DHS funding bill, with no immigration provisions attached, back to the House.

House Democratic leaders have said they expect to vote on the long-term funding bill this week.