>>> your people like senator rubio coming out, trying to defeat a measure he worked on trying to move forward. and to me, that notice leadership. i also dont want us to be overly focused on him because the people that really matter right now at this point in the debate have republican leadership. >> today the pressure continues to mount on those members of congress she talked about, the house republican leadership, particularly john boehner who has not brought up a health care bill on the floor despite the passage of a bipartisan senate bill. the congresswoman of florida is now the second house republican to sign on to a reform bill for house democrats. theres more evidence of bipartisan senate immigration bill would pass the house if speaker basiner would allow a vote. coming together to urge house republicans to put broad immigration legislation on the house floor, ideally before the end of this year. when the message kicked off over the weekend being the first republican to get on board and urge his colleagues to do the same. hes co-sponsors the house immigration bill introduce bid the democrats. first of all congressman, aapplaud you for your co-sponsorship of this bill. dont you agree that it is a huge mistake for house speaker john boehner not to bring this to the floor for a vote? >> i think we are going to see immigration this year. my focus right now is to make sure that we elevate this issue which is why i support it. isles an important issue to my family, an important issue to my community and i think its going to contribute to the greatness of america. so the more that we can elevate this debate and make sure that its brought up this year, i think the countrys going to be in a better place for it. >> what good reason is there to not just bring the bill up for a vote? >> we have to make sure that we have bipartisan pup sort. it cant be a republican or a democrat bill. it really needs to be a bipartisan bill. >> you by definition make it bipartisan, it is a bipart san bill, youre here. >> but its important to get 218 votes first. working with my democratic colleagues, they have obviously shown that they can support this bill, 185 co-sponsors already. now its time to get a number of republicans on board. its my mission to go out and talk to many -- and really get them to ask questions and i want to answer their questions. show me your amendment, but just saying no is not an option. >> if you could get 20 republicans, 25 republicans, if you could get that count to 218. are you telling me you can go to house speaker john boehner and say hey, we got 218, we can have a vote. >> you have heard specific pieces of legislation on the house on border security-- allow immigrants to -- it has to be all of those different areas coming to a vote together. my job now is to show the republicans can support this too. im going to get a number of republicans not only to support this bill, but to also send a letter to the speaker and continue to push in conference. this has to come up this year. its a short time frame. >> what happens to the republican party if the republican party is perceived and i would say rightly as the party that killed this last best chance of reform? well, certainly over the last decade or so, you can blame both parties, both parties have made mistakes. right now you know the senate has pretty much said put up or shut up. now its the houses job to act and im going to continue to push to get this done. i think what really causes challenges in the election are those extremes that say outrageous things and kofbcontinue to label the brand of my party or the outrageous things that have been said on the other side of the aisle as well. >> its 185 democrats on that bill and two republicans. thank you so much for your time.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:54:35 +0000
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