More than 200 lawmakers — including 20 Republicans — have now signed a discharge petition to circumvent leadership and trigger a series of votes on the floor dealing with immigration.
As of Tuesday evening, petition proponents needed just 15 more signatures to reach the magic number of 218, but it will be this last group that will be hardest to get with GOP leaders trying to defeat the effort.
If all 193 Democrats sign the petition, as they are expected to, the centrists would need only five more Republican signatures for the petition to succeed…
“We’re having more and more members sign on. … We’ve always been confident we have the votes, so it’s just signing more members up this week,” Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), who is leading the insurgent effort with Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), told The Hill on Tuesday. “We have a strategy all week long.”
