![\"nancy_pelosi_cake\"](\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/nancy_pelosi_cake-249x300.png\")
Today, on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi\u2019s (D-Calif.) birthday, House Democrats filed a discharge petition on H.R. 15. There will be 74 candles on Nancy Pelosi\u2019s birthday cake this year, but the number she\u2019s really wishing for is 218 \u2013 the number of signers needed to pass the discharge petition.<\/p>\n
H.R. 15 is the House Democrats\u2019 mass amnesty bill which misguidedly cobbles together the disastrous S.744 (the Senate Gang of Eight\u2019s bill) with Representatives Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Sheila Jackson Lee\u2019s (D-Texas) weak attempt at a border security bill (H.R. 1417). H.R. 15 would grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens and couple it with little to no enforcement. A discharge petition, if it gathers 218 votes (a majority of the House), forces a bill onto the floor for a vote. (See<\/i> FAIR\u2019s legislative update<\/a> for more information on what a discharge petition means.)<\/p>\n House Democrats have already<\/a> used this unusual House procedural move to try to increase the minimum wage and to extend unemployment benefits. Both discharge petitions failed to meet the vote threshold necessary to pass. While President Obama was silent on these previous two discharge petitions, the H.R. 15 petition today quickly received a round of applause<\/a> from the White House.<\/p>\n House Democrats shouldn\u2019t cut Pelosi\u2019s cake in celebration just yet. Don\u2019t forget that just a few weeks ago Pelosi admitted<\/a> on a radio show that the discharge petition would be a failure. She declared unequivocally, \u201cWe’ll never get to 218 on the discharge petition.\u201d The three House Republicans who co-sponsored H.R. 15\u2014David Valadao (R-Calif.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)\u2014 are refusing<\/a> to sign this discharge petition, which would be seen as an affront to Speaker Boehner\u2019s authority. Even amnesty supporters like the managing director of United We Dream, Cristina Jimenez, characterized the discharge petition effort as \u201cgathering meaningless petition signatures<\/a>.\u201d Perhaps, instead of Nancy Pelosi\u2019s birthday, they should have acted next Tuesday, on a more fitting day for the H.R. 15 discharge petition: April Fools\u2019 Day.