Many Republicans gambling that a new shutdown won't hurt their party

“It irritates the hell out of me,” Tom Ridge, the first Homeland Security secretary and a former two-term Pennsylvania governor, said in an interview. “I think it is political folly. I think it is bad policy. I think the political repercussions could be very severe. And on top of that, the men and women of Homeland Security deserve better.”

But buoyed by a Texas federal judge’s order last week to temporarily halt the president’s immigration plan, other Republicans are betting heavily that this time things will end differently for the party.

They predict Democrats will shoulder the blame if the Homeland Security Department runs out of money and see no reason to drop their demand that renewed funding include amendments blocking President Obama from implementing his program to defer deportation for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.

“We should be messaging to the American people that this president and the Senate Democrats are putting 5 million illegals ahead of the security of the United States,” Rep. Raul R. Labrador (R-Idaho) said in a recent discussion with fellow House conservatives. “We should be talking about nothing else.”