“It doesn’t matter at all,” said one senior GOP House leadership aide about the Senate vote on immigration. “It wouldn’t be something a Republican Senate would bring to the floor. Why should a Republican House just take it up?”

Added another House Republican leadership staffer: “Even if the bill passes with 70-plus votes in the Senate, the path to 218 in the House is very perilous. Many Republicans are skeptical of even voting on something as simple as border security, as they feel that it provides a ‘path to Conference [committee]‘ where they are afraid an untenable compromise will emerge.”

During the “fiscal cliff” debate, the Senate passed a bipartisan measure with 89 votes over the opposition of only five Republicans. But over in the House, less than 40 percent of Republicans supported it, reinforcing the reality that nothing in the Senate guarantees passage in the lower chamber.