Iowa congressman and secret border control agent Steve King (R) has successfully added a pair of garbage amendments to a garbage appropriations bill, virtually guaranteeing that it will be vetoed if it even makes it to the president's desk.
The White House already stated that it would veto H.R. 2578, a bill that would fund the Justice and Commerce departments, because it would block the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and implement elements of the Republican fantasy budget framework.
Steve King sweetened the deal yesterday by successfully sponsoring an amendment that would prohibit the executive branch from defending its decisions in court.
Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) amendment to the annual funding bill for the Justice Department passed on a party-line, 222-204 vote. Nineteen Republicans voted with all Democrats in opposition.
King, one of the most vocal opponents of illegal immigration, said his amendment would prevent the administration from using taxpayer dollars to defend what he described as its “unconstitutional executive amnesty position.”
I find it difficult to believe this would even be constitutional, but I don't foresee the president signing a bill into law that would prohibit his administration from defending itself.
It would be easy for it to become lost in the scrum, but at the heart of this is the Obama administration's effort keep more immigrant families together through executive discretion and an expanded guest worker program. This is what Steve King and his colleagues find so frightening that they would threaten the separation of powers itself. The party of family values has no interest in keeping brown families together.
And that was not the only amendment Steve King was able to add to the bill.
King offered a second amendment, adopted by voice vote, that would prohibit the use of funds to negotiate immigrant visas as part of a trade agreement.
Steve King really fucking hates people who aren't white.
If we face another federal government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year, this will be one reason why.