In a House floor debate on Friday where he squared off against House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that “many” U.S. Senators who voted for the Senate “Gang of Eight” immigration bill now “regret” having done so.
“Certainly there are differences on how to go about doing that, but we remain committed, as does the chairman, in trying to move in a step-by-step manner, to address the various issues involved with immigration reform, but not to do it the way the Senate did, because as we've seen, many of those who actually voted for the senate bill in the other body have now said they regret that vote or they perhaps would do something differently,” Cantor said on the House floor.
Cantor did not specify who specifically he meant. Fourteen Senate Republicans—including each of the four Republican members of the Gang of Eight—joined all Senate Democrats in supporting the over one thousand-page bill.
That number of Republicans who Cantor is likely referring to at least includes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the lead GOP sponsor of the Senate bill who effectively unendorsed it in an exclusive Breitbart News story by publicly opposing conference committee between the House and any Senate bills. All of House GOP leadership except for House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) joined Rubio’s disavowing of the Senate bill and any efforts to save it in a conference this week. Ryan is on record as supportive of efforts to save the Senate bill via conference and has not walked them back.
None of the other 14 Republicans who voted for the amnesty bill—Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Bob Corker (R-TN), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), or Susan Collins (R-ME), or now former Sen. Jeff Chiesa (R-NJ), who since been replaced by now Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) after the state’s special election—have publicly expressed regret over voting for the bill.
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