Senate Republicans had no appetite for discussing how to thwart President Obama’s executive orders on immigration during the conference’s weekly lunch, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Senator David Vitter (R., La.) tried to broach the topic, but they were ignored, according to the first source.


“At different times, Lee and Vitter stood up and tried to begin a discussion about what the plan was and asked leadership about what their strategy was to deal with the spending bill and respond to Obama executive amnesty, and the reply was always an effort to try to change the subject to the ozone rule from the EPA or some other issue, and it was just bizarre,” said a second source in corroboration of that account.

“What made it bizarre was that it was like [Lee and Vitter] were standing up and speaking in Latin,” the source continued, saying that other senators would respond to the immigration-related remarks with “a bizarre attempt to segue into a different issue.”

Another source disputed that account, saying that “they must have been at a different lunch because at today’s multiple members discussed the joint House-Senate strategy and you can bet that senators like Senator Sessions are rarely silent in discussions like this.”