Boehner Encourages Obama To Take Executive Action, One Day After Voting To Sue Obama Over Executive Action

BY ESTHER YU-HSI LEE/Think Progress

Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis “without the need for congressional action,” a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach.

“This situation shows the intense concern within our conference – and among the American people – about the need to ensure the security of our borders and the president’s refusal to faithfully execute our laws,” the House Republican leadership press release stated. “There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries.”

Boehner made the statement even though the House still had time Thursday before it broke for the August recess to vote through a $659 million supplemental emergency bill to deal with the child arrivals at the border. The House could still potentially offer up a fix to the border situation when the GOP holds an emergency meeting on Friday morning. Still, Republican leaders are struggling to reach the necessary 218 vote threshold, with some calling on a vote for a separate measure that would defund a 2012 presidential initiative that grants temporary deportation reprieve and work authorization for some undocumented immigrants.

At odds with Boehner’s statement is a lawsuit that House Republicans hadauthorized Wednesday, which criticizes the President over claims that he had unlawfully overused executive orders. The lawsuit enumerates a number of areas in which they allege Obama had employed executive overreach, but they especially targeted the President for not fully implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Their lawsuit does not specifically mention immigration. Republicans often cite a 2012 executive order known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as a prime example of executive overreach.

Republicans have claimed that the DACA program was responsible for the surge of child arrivals at the southern border since the beginning of the 2014 fiscal year, as well as the reason why they could never pass immigration reform. It seems that the executive action that House Republican leaders have expressed the most interest in since last year has been to dismantle the DACA program, voting three times to dissolve the DACA program, an issue that researchers found has little to do with the current border crisis (eligible DACA applicants must have entered and continuously lived in the United States before June 2007).

Uh Oh: Boehner’s Latest Shutdown Proposal Is Unconstitutional

BY IAN MILLHISER/Think Progress

Tuesday morning, House Republican leaders released a new plan to end the government shutdown and prevent America from defaulting on its debts if the Senate and President Obama agree to several policy demands. One of these demands would take away Members of Congress’ ability to receive an employer contribution to help pay for their health insurance, a benefit they — like all federal employees — currently enjoy.

There’s just one problem with this proposal, it’s unconstitutional unless it’s delayed for more than a year.

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution provides that “[n]o law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” A law eliminating federal contributions to congressmembers’ health benefits is a law “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives.” So it cannot take effect until after the next federal election in November 2014.

Although the text of the House GOP’s latest proposal is not yet available, they passed similar language denying health care contributions to members of Congress and other select federal employees during an earlier round of the shutdown showdown. That language contains no provision delaying the changes in congressional compensation until after the 2014 election — “[n]o Government contribution under section 8906 of title 5, United States Code, shall be provided on behalf of an individual who is a Member of Congress, congressional staff, the resident, the Vice President, or a political appointee for coverage under this subparagraph.”

Assuming the new proposal’s language tracks the language the House GOP already voted for late last month, the new proposal is unconstitutional.

Even Hastert Doesn’t Think Boehner Needs To Follow Arbitrary ‘Hastert Rule’

BY JOSH ISRAEL/Think Progress

Though it appears a majority of the House now backs a clean continuing resolution, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has thus far suppressed consideration because the idea does not have majority support within the GOP caucus and would thus violate the so-called “Hastert Rule.” But even the arbitrary requirement’s namesake, former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) says the Hastert Rule is a “non-entity” to which even he didn’t adhere.

Despite the disastrous and wide-ranging effects of the government shutdownhis party forced, Boehner has steadfastly refused to bring up a straight bill to re-open the government, without dismantling Obamacare. Asked Monday whether he’d allow the House to give an up-or-down vote to a clean continuing resolution, Boehner told reporters, “That’s not going to happen.”

In an interview with Eleanor Clift for The Daily Beast, Hastert –the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in the nation’s history — said, “The Hastert Rule never really existed. It’s a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.” While he acknowledged that in 2006 he had explained he “philosophically” preferred to have at least half of the GOP conference behind legislation, it “wasn’t a rule.”

“The Hastert Rule is kind of a misnomer,” Hastert added. “The real Hastert Rule is 218,” a simple majority of the U.S. House when no seats are vacant, he continued. “If we had to work with Democrats, we did.”

A Huffington Post tally finds 20 House Republicans have now indicated they would be willing to back a clean bill. Combined with the 200 House Democrats, they could provide more than 218 votes to pas a clean continuing resolution — should Boehner bring the measure to the floor.

The Ohio Republican has previously disregarded the “Hastert Rule” to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, avert the “fiscal cliff,” and to provide Superstorm Sandy emergency aid funding.

Hastert declined to criticize Boehner directly, but noted, “You can’t be in Congress and shut down government and get anything done. It’s an oxymoron.”

Pelosi: Boehner Was ‘Projecting’ When He Called Obama Weak

PEMA LEVY /TPM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was "projecting" his own failures when he claimed that President Obama won't cut spending because he is too weak to stand up to the liberal wing of his party. 

"I don’t understand that because he’s a gentleman, the speaker is," Pelosi said in an interviewwith CNN published Wednesday. "But that remark was -- I mean, it was almost as if he was projecting onto the president his lack of being able to pass any bill that created jobs since he became speaker."

CNN's Chris Cuomo clarified: "You think the speaker is projecting onto the president his own failure?"

"Exactly," Pelosi said. "Because he hasn't been able to deal with his own party. There isn't anything that he passed that we haven't' delivered the votes for him that has been job-creating."

While emos shriek, Obama gives Boehner the shiv

Liberal Librarian/The People's View

A bit of analysis from Josh Marshall:

 But the real issue here probably comes down to Boehner’s weakness, institutional and personal. It’s a question the White House has had from the beginning and suspects the worst on — that John Boehner can’t actually deliver any deal, almost no matter what’s included in it. Someone on Twitter just called him the rodeo clown of conservative politics, which about captures it.

We've been treated to a full meltdown among our True Progressive (TM) friends for the past two days—while the nation is still raw over the Newtown massacre—over the reports leaking out that President Obama is going to "cave" to Boehner and give him the Keys to the Kingdom, turning Social Security over to the corporatists and making you wait until you're on your deathbed to qualify for Medicare. It's predictable, and really not worth going over in too much detail. Much like the bomb throwers on the Right, those on the Left have a preternatural hatred of this president, distrusting him as much as denizens of Red State do, and look at any action and statement from him or his Administration as prelude to a betrayal. This is merely another milestone in the infantilization of our political culture, where total defeat is to be preferred to messy compromise in which you achieve at least some of your aims.

So, as with Mr. Marshall, let's focus on what Obama has been able to accomplish in the short few weeks since negotiations began in earnest.

During the last hostage negotiation, John Boehner wouldn't take a "grand bargain" where the ratio of revenue to cuts was 1:4. He couldn't sell that to his caucus, as it would have been seen to be a victory for compromise, which in the Tea Party dominated House was anathema.

Now? Boehner has agreed, if the reports are correct, to a 1:1 ratio between revenue and cuts. Good, no? Well, yes, but here's the rub: if he couldn't sell the 2011 grand bargain to his membership, he certainly won't be able to sell this.

But here's the other thing: the big business community,  mainstay of the GOP, has pretty much come out in favor of this grand bargain. They control the purse strings. So Boehner has to contend with that.

It's gone beyond that, however. The speaker has no control over his party. No one does, not him, not Cantor, not any other putative candidate for the Speakership. What Obama has done in a few weeks is reveal, once and for all, that the Republican Party as it stands today is totally unready to govern. Boehner won't bring any bill to the floor that doesn't have the support of his membership. But there is no bill that he could bring that would have that support.

The reason for this is very simple: any resolution will be seen as a victory for Obama. If he and Boehner come to an agreement, the public will see it as due mostly to the President's efforts. If we go off the cliff, the public has already made it clear that it will blame Boehner and his party, and demand that it follow the President's and Democrats' lead.

As I've said in other pieces, it's been obvious to me that Obama's overarching goal has been to break the 30 year long Republican fever which has gripped this country's governance. We are now facing a situation where those who bankroll the GOP will not countenance taking a risk with a rise in taxes and drastic spending cuts—and certainly not any more dithering with the debt limit. Boehner will be forced to take the President's offered hand, and pass a deal which will depend on Nancy Pelosi providing votes from her caucus. If the Tea Party is true to its word, this will set off a political bloodbath. This doesn't bode well for the next 2 years of governance; but it does set up the Democrats—backed by OFA's organizational muscle—to wrest the House away from Boehner and Cantor. Yes, the math doesn't favor it happening; but it didn't favor it happening going into 2006, either. 

In his analysis, Marshall goes on to say that Boehner is like Mahmoud Abbas, and it might be time for the Democrats to negotiate with the Hamas wing of the GOP. That's a bit further than I'd go; Abbas has no partner on the Israeli side; whereas Boehner knows all too well that Obama is waiting, with that welcoming grin on his face, for the Speaker to face the inevitable. Doing so will upend the Republicans. Where the pieces fall on the right will be hard to predict. But the country will see once again that there is one party working to govern for the good of all, and one party that is a cauldron of dysfunction. Win-win indeed.

Boehner Decides A Tax Hike On Millionaires Won’t Kill Jobs, After All

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

With time dwindling before the scheduled tax increase on all Americans on January 1, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has switched to his“Plan B,” allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on income in excess of $1 million. Originally, Boehner refused to consider any deal without an extended tax cut for the top 1 percent of earners, claiming it would kill jobs and hurt businesses.

Bohener’s new baseline is still far higher than Obama’s latest limit, which revised the income bracket up from incomes of $250,000 to $400,000. But the Speaker has changed his tune since May, when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried to hold the same vote.

At the time, Boehner refused to let Congress pass a tax cut for middle-class families without one for millionaires, calling Pelosi’s offer “bullshit” at a closed meeting. He cited a popular GOP myth that small businesses would be affected by the expiration of the tax cuts on individuals making $250,000 or more, claiming it was “a big mistake” that would “kill jobs.”

“I believe that raising taxes at this point in our recovery is a big mistake,”Boehner said at a Capitol press conference when asked about Pelosi’s letter. [...] “Even under Ms. Pelosi’s argument, half of those who would get this higher tax are small-business people that are sub-Chapter S or other types of pass-through entities,” Boehner said. “At a time when we are trying to help small businesses create jobs, this proposal would kill jobs.”

In fact, only 3 percent of small businesses would be affected by the tax increase. Before the Bush tax cuts, small businesses grew twice as fast under Clinton rates.

Boehner’s fiscal cliff deal is full of pseudo-compromises. Besides his new willingness to allow tax cuts to expire for millionaires, the Speaker’s deal also promises not to bring the nation to the brink of default again for at least one year — in exchange for devastating spending cuts.

UPDATE

The House will vote on two separate proposals to extend the Bush tax cuts for people making $250,000 and below or for people making $1 million and below on Thursday.

Boehner Refuses To Give Specifics About The Entitlement Cuts He’s Demanding

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called on President Obama and Democrats to specify entitlement cuts that could balance their desires for tax increases in a hypothetical deal to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff,” even though only Republicans have demanded spending cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security. Despite their support for putting entitlement programs on the chopping block, GOP lawmakers have refused to specify how, or by how much, they would cut the programs.

Boehner, instead, used a press conference today to urge Democrats to take the lead on entitlements, even though Obama and Democratic leaders made it clear that they would not support a deal that cut Social Security, and Democrats have repeatedly opposed the Medicare changes Republicans have attempted to make in the past:

BOEHNER: There has been no serious discussion of spending cuts so far. And unless there is, there is a real danger of going off the fiscal cliff. [...] So right now all eyes are on the White House…It’s time for the President, Congressional Democrats to tell the American people what spending cuts they’re willing to make.

Q: Why will you not tell Democrats, what specific spending cuts you would like to see, especially within entitlements?

BOEHNER: It’s been very clear over the last year and a half. I’ve talked to the President about many of them. You can look at our budget, where we outlined very specific proposals, where we passed in last year’s budget and the budget from the year before. We know what the menu is, what we don’t know is what the White house is willing to do to get serious about solving our debt crisis.

Q: So your 2011 position still stands, then? I mean, are you still offering, those talks from 2011, is that still the basis here?

BOEHNER: Listen, I’m not going to get into the details, but it’s very clear what kind of spending cuts need to occur, but we have no idea what the White House is willing to do.

The entitlement cuts Boehner and the Republicans have already approved, like turning Medicare into a voucher program, are vastly unpopular with Americans, who have long opposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security (past polls, in fact, have shown that they preferincreases in the programs). Recent polling shows that even Republican voters oppose Medicare cuts. Americans rejected the Republican Medicare plan during the 2012 election, when losing vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan insisted that the GOP could win the debate about specific changes to the program.

Democrats, meanwhile, have already passed reforms to strengthen Medicare — Obama’s health care law cut $716 billion and lengthened the program’s life by eight years, according to the Congressional Budget Office — and Democratic senators have proposed legislation that would extend the life of Social Security, while also increasing benefits for all recipients. Republicans opposed the Medicare cuts in Obamacare and have not shown a willingness to support Democratic proposals on Social Security.

Boehner fears GOP could lose control of the house

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Speaker Cuts Off C-SPAN Cameras When Dems Attempt To Bring Vote On Payroll Tax Cut

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

During a quick pro-forma session of the House this morning, Republicans rebuffed a Democratic attempt to force an up-or-down vote on the Senate-passed payroll tax holiday extension, which Republicans have thus farrefused to allow. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who was serving as the speaker pro-temp, ignored shouts of “Mr. Speaker!” from Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), quickly adjourning the House.

Hoyer continued talking undeterred, saying, “You’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers [and] the unemployed.” “We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing this issue of critical importance to this country,” Hoyer added.

Moments later, the mic appeared to cut out. A few seconds after that, the video feed switched away from the House floor to a still image of the Capitol Dome. It appears someone in House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) office cut the feed, as C-SPAN tweeted afterwards: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does.”

Watch it:

After Signaling Support, John Boehner Calls Tax Break For Middle Class ‘Chicken-Shit’

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

Despite their stated opposition to tax increases, Republican lawmakers have been largely cool or even hostile to a proposed extension of the temporary payroll tax cut, pushed by President Obama and Democrats. Finally, this week, Republicans seemed to relent as GOP congressional leaders publicly urged their caucuses to vote for an extension of the plan. “The fact is that Republicans are doing everything we can to allow American families and small businesses to keep more of what they earn,” Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said this morning of efforts to whip GOP lawmakers to support an extension.

But in private, Boehner seems to hold a different view. Politico reports that in a closed-door GOP meeting this morning, Boehner referred to an extension of the payroll tax holiday as “chicken-shit,” saying he wanted to tack on unrelated legislation favored by Republicans to make it palatable:

GOP leadership told its membership at a closed-door meeting Friday morning it would couple with the expiring tax provisions an easing of environmental regulations on boilers, selling broadband spectrum and paving the way for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. [...]

Speaker John Boehner referred to the package he’s putting forward as turning “chicken-sh — into chicken salad,” according to people attending the meeting in the Capitol basement Friday morning.

Translated, he’s going to pass President Barack Obama’s preferred tax cut, but he wants some skin from Democrats for it.

So which is it? Does Boehner actually believe in extending the payroll tax holiday for the middle class, or is that “chicken-shit”? An extension of the payroll tax holiday would help 95 percent of working families, but would disproportionately benefit working and middle-class people, as there’s a cap that prevents wealthy people from being taxed on anything they make over about $100,000.

Last night, Republicans in the Senate killed a Democratic bill that would have extended the middle-class tax holiday while raising taxes slightly on just the wealthiest 0.4 percent of Americans.

Boehner’s District Suffers From E. Coli Outbreak As House Republicans Try To Gut Food Safety

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, despite yet another outbreak of food-borne illness — this time stemming from listeria infected cantaloupes — congressional Republicans are still trying to cut back onthe nation’s food safety regulations. The tainted melons have caused 16 deaths so far, making this the deadliest outbreak in more than a decade, and it comes just a month after salmonella-tainted turkey forced food-giant Cargill into the third-largest food recall on record.

Lost in the well-deserved focus on the listeria outbreak is the fact that another giant food-producer, Tyson Fresh Meats, was forced this week to recall more than 130,000 pounds of ground beef due to E. Coli contamination. And this particular breakdown in food safety should earn the attention of the man leading the GOP in its slash-and-burn approach to the budget, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), as four children in his districtwere sickened by the meat:

The recall of 65 tons of ground beef that might be contaminated with E. coli has hit close to home for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

The meat, recalled today by Tyson Fresh Meats, was shipped to 16 states…WCPO, ABC’s affiliate in Cincinnati, reported today, “four children became ill after eating the meat with their family in Butler County, Ohio, in the second week of September.” “A 9-year-old child was hospitalized for about 10 days with severe diarrhea,” the station reported.

As we’ve pointed out time and time again, one in six Americans is sickened by food-borne illness each year, and more than 3,000 die. The annual cost to the country of food-borne illnesses is $152 billion, according to Georgetown University’s Produce Safety Project. However, the GOP has not only refused to fund the implementation of a landmark food safety law passed last year, but has said that the current rules on the books are too onerous, because the food industry “self-polices.” But as the current slew of recalls shows, that it clearly not the case.

Maddow: GOP disrespect for Obama hits an all-time high

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

MSNBC’s liberal host Rachel Maddow tore into Republicans last night over their disrespect for President Barack Obama, exemplified by Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) refusal to schedule a joint session of Congress last week.

“Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner did something that has never before been done in the history of our nation: he said no. He said it would be inconvenient for the House, because, he said, there were votes scheduled in the House for Wednesday night.”

“This is unprecedented,” she added. “No speaker, no Congress, has ever said that to any president in U.S. history.”

The votes Boehner felt were so important: a roll call vote on letting the Special Olympics conduct a torch run in Washington, D.C., and speeches congratulating a girls’ softball team on reaching the world championships.

And if that weren’t enough disrespect, four Republican members of Congress refused to attend the speech.

“There’s apparently something about this president that erases the need for whatever deference congressional Republicans might otherwise feel toward the office that President Obama holds. I would love to hear them explain exactly what that is.”

The members who refused to attend were Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA).

It should be noted that Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Speaker Boehner both encouraged members to show respect and attend the speech.

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Monday, Sept. 12, 2011.

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JOHN BOEHNER AND ERIC CANTOR WON’T COMMIT TO HURRICANE RELIEF WITHOUT BUDGET CUTS

From Think Progress


House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is insisting that “any potential emergency disaster aid be offset by spending cuts.” Huffington Post reports that “Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring on Friday declined to say where Republicans would look to make cuts to pay for a potential storm aid package.” Speaker John Boehner’s spokesperson “ducked the question altogether when asked if Boehner agreed with Cantor’s call for offsets for emergency aid.” Boehner and Cantor’s position is “a break from a bipartisan tradition” of immediately appropriating funds to help those in need following a natural disaster.


Motor City Liberal Comment: Someone ought to tell these dingleberries that the jig is up no one believes the Republicans concerns for the growing debt.

With Economy Stalling, Republicans To Spend August Recess Promoting Ridiculous Constitutional Amendment

By Pat Garofalo

Between yesterday’s stock market nose dive and today’s jobs report that shows the labor market is barely treading water, its undeniable that the economy is in a precarious position. A report earlier this week by analysts at JP Morgan showed that federal fiscal policy is actually going to retard growth through the next year, and the Federal Reserve seems unwilling to approve any additional measures to boost job creation.

With that in mind, job creation should be foremost on the minds of Washington policymakers. However, it seems that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has other plans:

In a meeting with his conference on Monday, Speaker John A. Boehner told members that the best thing they could do during the August recess was to sell their constituents on the idea that the amendment — which essentially stipulates that government cannot spend more than it takes in — is necessary and good.

Republican leaders on the Hill have pivoted from railing against Democrats about tax increases to pressing for the amendment, which would require the acquiescence of two-thirds of each chamber of Congress, and three-quarters of state legislatures. They point out that such a measure passed the House in 1995, but then failed in the Senate by a single vote.

Even though the GOP never even held a vote on a balanced budget amendment when it controlled both houses of Congress under President George W. Bush, it has now become obsessed with the BBA, demanding a vote on it as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. And evidently, the August recess will be spent trying to drum up the political support to make that vote a success.

As we’ve noted over and over again, a balanced budget amendment would force the government to actively make economic downturns worse, by cutting back on spending precisely when the economy needs it most. In a letter to Congressional leadership, five Nobel Prize-winning economists wrote that “a balanced budget amendment would mandate perverse actions in the face of recessions,” adding that the BBA would prevent federal borrowing to finance investments into infrastructure, education, environmental preservation, and other areas “vital to the nation’s future well-being.”

So instead of thinking of ways to alleviate the suffering of those coping with the current weak economy, Republicans are going to spend the rest of the month trying to sell a policy that will make future downturns even worse.

Boehner version of debt ceiling bill passes in the House

By Muriel Kane/Raw Story

By a vote of 218 to 210, the House of Representatives on Friday passed the version of debt ceiling legislation promoted by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner.

Twenty-two Republican members voted against the bill, along with every Democrat who was present. The GOP no votes included Representatives Amash, Bachmann, Broun, Chaffetz, DesJarlais, Graves, King, Gowdy, Duncan, Latham, Huelskamp, Jordan, Paul, Mack, Scott, Walsh, Cravaack, Mulvaney, Johnson (Ill.), Southerland, Wilson, and McClintock. It appears significant that several of those are from the early primary states of Iowa and South Carolina.

The bill then moved from the House to the Senate, where it was immediately defeated by a vote of 59 to 41, with a few Republicans joining Democrats and independents to vote against it.

By midnight on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to offer his own version of the legislation, which according to Talking Points Memo will be "amended to include more spending cuts, and a few as-yet undisclosed carrots, to entice enough Republicans to overcome a filibuster and pass the legislation."

The hope is that the bill can be passed in the Senate by the end of the weekend and returned to the House on Monday, where it will face the challenge of winning over enough Republican members to obtain a majority

The bill then moved from the House to the Senate, where it was immediately defeated by a vote of 59 to 41, with a few Republicans joining Democrats and independents to vote against it.

By midnight on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to offer his own version of the legislation, which according to Talking Points Memo will be "amended to include more spending cuts, and a few as-yet undisclosed carrots, to entice enough Republicans to overcome a filibuster and pass the legislation."

The hope is that the bill can be passed in the Senate by the end of the weekend and returned to the House on Monday, where it will face the challenge of winning over enough Republican members to obtain a majority.