LEGISLATIVE UPDATE APRIL 30, 2013

FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION!

Senate:


Internet Sales Tax--Last Thursday cloture was invoked to end debate on the mis-titled Market Place Fairness Act (S. 743) by a vote of 63-30. Vote on final passage will happen on Monday, May 6, which will send the bill over to the House. The final vote will require only a majority to pass the bill, so 14 supporters would have to flip to stop it. We have identified 10 awful things about the Internet Sales Tax to keep in mind as well as issued a “Key Vote” against the Senate bill. Remember the House will be a key firewall to the legislation being stopped. Therefore, please click here to see whether or not your House Member is on the co-sponsor list for the Internet Sales Tax.

Immigration:  The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin marking up the so-called Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform legislation on May 9th. It will most likely be considered for a vote before July 4th. It’s important to know that this piece of legislation provides amnesty and does so within 6 months for all current 11 million here illegally. The “Path to citizenship” is a problem but it is vitally important to focus on the bills’ amnesty within six months. Senator Rubio has defended the bill by saying there are triggers, but there is nothing binding in the law. We need to kill this bill in the Senate, but the House is our firewall. For additional reference please see the attached one pager.

Senator Cruz video:  Senator Ted Cruz recently spoke to a group of activists in Texas about the effectiveness of your persistence in Congressional accountability during the recent gun control debate. It is worth watching.

House:

Immigration:  The House immigration working group “Gang of 10” is considering a plan that would require illegal immigrants to appear in federal court and admit to breaking immigration law, before being granted amnesty. We need their immigration plan to go through regular order and through the Judiciary Committee in order for the conservatives to help provide an open and transparent process. House Leadership has not really said which way they are going to go, but they have encouraged Members in the House “Gang of 10” to come up with the bill. When asking our Representatives if they oppose the bill, we need to make sure we are asking them if they oppose amnesty, meaning any legalized states (and not just path to citizenship).

Farm Bill:  The Farm Bill in the House was nearly a $1 trillion dollar bill in 2012 ($957 billion over 10 years). The farm bill in 2008 was $604 billion over ten years—a 63% increase. 80% of the bill was federal food stamp funding. This is because there are now 46 million individuals on food stamps, compared with 17 million in 2000 and 30 million in 2008 respectively. 1 out of every 7 Americans are now on food stamps. Farm Bill supporters marry food stamps and farm subsidies in order to create the dynamic to generate support and pass it. Our Representatives need to answer why they support hundreds of billions in food stamps and then convince them to split the bill. The House is expected to unveil their new bill soon and consider it in May. It is expected to be similar to the bill that we helped block last year. However, we need to start educating the Congress on the bill’s expected problems now.