Sources close to the House Majority Whip’s operation say they were only a few votes short, and the votes they were missing were from The Yellowhammer State.
“(House Speaker) Boehner and (Majority Leader) McCarthy were personally lobbying members of the Alabama delegation, but they wouldn’t budge,” a source on Capitol Hill told Yellowhammer on condition of anonymity so they could speak freely. “In particular, Aderholt, Brooks, Byrne and Rogers were pushing hard for tougher language. It was actually Aderholt’s tougher enforcement language that ended up in the final bill. He basically said, ‘I’m not voting for this unless my language gets in there.’ Several of the conservative heavyweights in the House backed what he was doing, too.”
It is widely believed that the efforts of Alabama’s Republicans were indispensable to blocking the initial flawed plan. They led the fight in the House.
