Boehner has said for months he wants the House to act on immigration, and any bills Republicans would take up would be far different than the comprehensive legislation the Senate passed in 2013. The House measures would focus heavily on border and interior security, although they could also include provisions creating a guest-worker program and increasing the number of H1B visas, as in the Senate bill. Yet the speaker has warned that Obama's decision to act alone would ruin the chances for reform during his presidency, a view shared by the incoming Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. "He has so poisoned the well on this immigration issue now, I'm not sure whether there's a way forward or not," McConnell said last week in a radio interview on the Joe Elliot Show.

Censure

Even Obama's most ardent conservative congressional critics have avoided calling for his impeachment, but another formal reprimand has generated some discussion in the last week. "Number one, I think we should censure the president of the United States," Labrador said on CBS's Face the Nation after Obama's announcement. "I think it's unfortunate that he did this. I think we need to lay out clearly why this is unlawful."

Congress has voted just once to censure a president, when the Senate rebuked Andrew Jackson in 1834 over his veto of the re-charter of the Bank of the United States. (The Senate later expunged the censure from the record.) While the act would be purely symbolic, it would mean that a Republican Congress would have acted to formally repudiate each of the last two Democratic presidents, and it's an idea that's not expected to gain any traction with the leadership. "I think it would be useless," Fleming said.

Cancel the State of the Union Address

The Constitution mandates that the president give a report "on the state of the union," but it does not require him to do so in person, or in the Capitol. Until a century ago, presidents typically sent their reports in writing, and Rich Lowry, who edits the National Review, said last week Republican leaders should tell Obama he's "not welcome in our chamber" this year.

In short, this is not going to happen. Boehner is, above all, an institutionalist when it comes to the ceremonies and traditions of government, and he's not about to risk the political backlash that would follow a move so disrespecting of the president, no matter how angry his members are. "That's incredibly childish, peevish, and petty," Cole said, offering an opinion likely shared by the leadership. Obama will deliver a State of the Union address in January, but Republicans might sit on their hands a little more than usual.

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