Senate Fails To Pass Border Supplemental (Video)

Posted July 31, 2014 at 7:47pm

Updated 7:56 p.m. |

Hours after House GOP leaders had to pull their own $659 million bill , Republicans used a budget point of order by Senate Budget Chairman Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to kill the Senate bill on a 50-44 vote, 10 votes shy of the 60 votes needed.

The GOP opposed the proposal, written by Democrats, in part because they were blocked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., from offering amendments, including an attempt by Sessions to prohibit President Barack Obama from issuing a new executive order Sessions has labeled “administrative amnesty.”

Republicans also opposed it because it did not change a 2008 trafficking law to expedite deportations of child migrants.

The bill also included $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system and $615 million for wildfire suppression.

Reid sought unanimous consent to move the Israel funding on its own. But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., followed through on his threat to object because it would add to the deficit. Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, also objected to Reid’s requests to pass the wildfire funding and the wildfire and Israel funding together.

House Republicans, meanwhile, plan to regroup Friday and try again to pass their bill.