Democrats want the Republicans’ proposal for authorization of the wall between the U.S. and Mexico to pass every committee with jurisdiction before the bill comes to the House for a vote, Politico reports.
According to Democrats on six committees that have oversight over parts of the bill, the only way to ensure regular order is if their panels consider the legislation before it goes to the Senate. They even wrote to Speaker Paul Ryan, and chairmen of the six committees.
“We respectfully request that each committee mark up this legislation and be given an opportunity to thoroughly examine and discuss provisions within our purview,” the Democrats wrote.
In 2015 Ryan said he would return to regular order, but has disobeyed that many times, especially when it comes to controversial bills like Obamacare repeal plan.
Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee approved the bill which calls for ten billion dollars to build the wall.
The Republicans will probably oppose to the initiative. The bill might be passed by the House, but it will go nowhere in the Senate, where the Democrats might filibuster it because they think that funding the wall is a failure.
The letter was signed by Raul Grijalva of Arizona, ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, Adam Smith of Washington, Armed Services Committee ranking member, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, top Democrat on the Transportation panel, Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal, Oversight ranking member Elijah Cummings and Foreign Affairs top Democrat Eliot Engel of New York. The letter wasn’t signed by Collin Peterson, top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, eve though the panel can claim jurisdiction over the legislation.
In the meantime, at least four designs for the wall have gone on display near San Diego. Photos of the progress that builders have made in the last days on at least 30-foot-tall prototypes were published on Twitter by the region’s Customs and Border Protection division, Newsweek reports.
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