Every Senate GOPer but one votes down 'most conservative border security bill in four decades'

23 May 2024

The bipartisan immigration reform and border security bill that failed to pass the U.S. Senate earlier this year just failed another procedural attempt to move through the chamber.

On Thursday, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate attempted to advance a cloture vote on the bill, which is a procedure by which a bill needs 60 votes to advance to the next step of actually getting an up-or-down vote in the upper chamber of Congress. That cloture motion failed on a 50-43 vote, with seven members not present. Of the 43 yea votes, 42 were Democrats. The bill's lone Republican supporter was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Three Democrats and four Republicans did not vote.

Huffpost reporter Igor Bobic tweeted that Thursday's cloture vote was actually even worse for the legislation's supporters than the first time the bill came up in February, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) all voting no on cloture. Democrats and independents who voted no were Sens. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Laphonza Butler (D-California), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Alex Padilla (D-California), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona).

The fact that Lankford voted no is significant, as he was the GOP's lead negotiator for months — Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Sinema were the other two most involved in crafting it — and defended the bill up until its failure in February. Lankford praised the legislation in an interview with NBC News earlier this year, calling it "by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades."

Romney's no vote came despite the Utah Republican declining to seek another six year in the U.S. Senate, having little to fear from MAGA Republicans and being at the end of his political career. In January, Romney even put the blame directly on Trump, accusing him of privately telling Republicans to not allow any border-related legislation to advance under the assumption that he would win in November and personally sign a bill into law after taking office.

"I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump," Romney said at the time. "And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling."

Lankford was not optimistic about getting a legislative solution to immigration and securing the Southern border passed prior to the next session of Congress, lamenting that "at this point, no one really seems to want to have serious conversation on it."

President Joe Biden's campaign account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a compilation of clips showing Lankford, Romney, and other Republicans slamming their own party for exploiting the border issue for craven political gain. In one clip, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) is seen calling out his fellow Republicans for their "very strange maneuvering... to torpedo a potential border reform bill."

"We have a bill that, on net, significantly decreases illegal immigration, and we sabotage that, that is inconsistent with what we told our voters we would do, Crenshaw said. "It would be a pretty unacceptable dereliction of your duty."

Far-right House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was also seen in the video directly blaming Trump for failing to build his promised border wall during his first term in office.

"Look, this stuff matters, it adds up. I call balls and strikes," Roy said. "This is not hard."

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