On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers who have a more moderate stance on immigration defied the leaders of their party by making moves to force a vote in the House of Representatives over the issue. The group’s leader claimed they had enough support to succeed.
The legislators want to see the House vote on several bills, including a liberal plan, a conservative proposal, and a more bipartisan compromise, which all include proposals for trying to deal with the deferred action issue. Some of the legislators are facing potentially tough re-election campaigns in November, in congressional districts that have a large number of suburban, Hispanic, and other voters whose views are in favor of immigration. The bipartisan compromise is seen as the most likely of the bills to have a chance of passing the House.
But, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, is against allowing the votes to go ahead and is likely to try and dissuade other lawmakers in the Republican Party from agreeing to take part. Ryan has already made some unsuccessful attempts to gather enough support for the more conservative proposal and believes it is pointless to gather votes for immigration legislation that is almost certain to be rejected by President Donald Trump.
If a majority of House members – at least 218 – put their signatures to discharge petition, Ryan will not be able to stop the vote from going ahead, with the petition being filed by the group on Wednesday, when they began collecting votes.