The House on Tuesday began consideration of the long-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under an expedited procedure.
But conservatives opposed to moving the measure still had a few tricks up their sleeves.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, offered the motion to bring up the Senate-passed DHS funding bill without any provisions to undo President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
{mosads}Lawmakers typically dispense with formally reading an entire bill on the House floor. But Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a hard-line conservative, objected to the routine unanimous consent request to do so, a move that stalled proceedings.
That forced House reading clerk Susan Cole to read aloud the 96-page DHS funding bill line by line. But Massie ultimately withdrew his request to read aloud the entire bill after about 20 minutes.
Massie then forced a vote to “table,” or reject, the Senate-passed DHS bill. A vote in favor of the motion equated a vote against the underlying bill.
The motion to table failed by a vote of 140-278. More than 90 House Republicans joined all Democrats to defeat it.
“I think it’s a good exercise. It looks like it’s going to go down in defeat, but it’s worth a try,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
Fleming said it was most important that the House conducts a roll call on final passage of the DHS funding measure so that lawmakers put their positions on the record. Conservatives were wary that the House would pass it by a voice vote, like the “doc fix” sustainable growth rate (SGR) extension last year.
“It would be theoretically possible to do just it in a blink of an eye, the way SGR was done last year. And I think that would be a chicken way out of this,” Fleming said.
The House is now expected to vote on final passage of the DHS funding bill later Tuesday afternoon.
Read more on The Hill:
House could vote Tuesday on funding Homeland Security
–This report was updated at 2:23 p.m.