Story highlights
Sen. Joe Manchin of Montana is parting ways with many of his fellow Democrats
He wants President Obama to hold off using executive authority to order major changes
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and Sen. Jon Tester echo Manchin's sentiments
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is breaking with many in his party by urging the White House to give Congress more time to reach an immigration reform agreement. He wants President Barack Obama to hold off using his executive authority to order major immigration changes, which the President is set to announce Thursday.
“I just wish he wouldn’t do it. I really don’t. I just think we ought to work through this process and, with the new elections and the results of the elections, we ought to try in January to see if we can find a pathway to get something accomplished,” the West Virginia centrist said Tuesday.
Manchin, who reliably works across the aisle, is concerned Obama’s actions will offend Republicans and make it politically much harder for the two parties to agree to broader reforms that still will be needed to fully fix the broken immigration system.
He said he would like to see House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, bring up a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate and put it to a vote, something Boehner has refused to do citing a variety of concerns with the bill.
“Let’s see what everyone intends to do,” he said. “I would think the Republicans will have observed and hopefully learned the formula we used before didn’t work so I hope they wouldn’t repeat it.”
Manchin’s concerns are in contrast to the views of many congressional Democrats who are sighing relief that the President has decided finally to go around the gridlocked Congress to help millions of immigrants living in the country illegally.
However, two other moderate Democrats asked by CNN about the issue echoed Manchin’s views.
When asked whether she thought the President should issue the executive orders, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said “I think, as I’ve said, it’s better to give Congress time to work on a bill.”
And Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who was just elected to a leadership position in the Democratic caucus, said, “It would be great to get the House to take up the bill that passed the Senate. That would be a solution to the problem.”
Asked whether he would prefer the President not do it by executive authority, he replied, “I would prefer that Congress act, yes.”