(File Photo)

The Senate has been debating so-called immigration reform for quite a while, and now the House of Representatives is about to get into the action. However, many House conservatives are outwardly voicing their displeasure with House Speaker John Boehner over fears that he may ramrod a bill through the chamber without going through the proper legislative procedures.

As reported by Breitbart.com, conservatives are planning to revolt if “House Speaker John Boehner tries to rush any immigration reform bill through his chamber of Congress.”

According to a recent Politico report, Boehner is seriously considering abandoning regular order to rush through immigration reform. Regular orders is the process by which a bill is supposed to come up through the respective committees of jurisdiction and allow members of those committees to offer amendments, an open and transparent process that then is supposed to continue on the House floor.

“The GOP is also mulling skipping the committee process and instead having lengthy discussions among Republicans to work out the legislation’s kinks,” Politico’s Jake Sherman wrote in the report. “This would allow leading conservatives who are crafting the deal with Democrats to explain the policy. That seems to be the preferred path, according to conversations with several GOP aides.”

If Boehner follows this strategy, he would be abandoning one of the key promises he made to get re-elected as Speaker just a few months ago while several conservative members tried to unseat him. At the time, he guaranteed he would return the House to regular order on all legislation, a promise that ended up helping him turn some who had planned to oppose his re-election as Speaker back into supporters.

The Blaze is reporting that 70 House Republicans are planning to hold their ground and fight Boehner if the committee process is skipped.

The 70 members are petitioning for a special Republican conference meeting on the bill, a “highly unusual” move to go head-to-head with the speaker, according to Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Steve King (Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (Texas), who are serving as spokespersons for the group.

Bachmann, King and Gohmert told TheBlaze the group is invoking the Hastert Rule: requiring support from a majority of the majority to bring a bill forward.

The petition is expected to go to the House leadership on Friday, but it’s possible some signatories might remove their names due to political risk, or that Boehner could head off the challenge by striking a deal. Going against leadership in such a way could have harsh political consequences for the signatories, including retaliation such as permanently getting passed over for chairmanship positions.

Here’s what Rep. Michele Bachmann had to say:

In his press conference on Thursday, Boehner sidestepped the issue by saying that he would not bring up legislation to the floor that violates Republican principles. What does he mean by that? Who knows?

Is Boehner in trouble? Is it time for him to go? If the Republicans endorse a bill that doesn’t focus on the REAL problem (border security) and instead panders to the next great voting bloc, we are all in serious trouble. We can’t beat the Democrats with pandering, since they can and will always offer more taxpayer-funded handouts. We must stand on principle, and it appears Boehner’s job may be hinging on it.

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