At the center of the immigration storm now stands Yoho, a man who never held elective office before last year. Congress Yoho! Meet the veterinarian whose quixotic bill could stop a government shutdown.

As Republicans searched for a way to demonstrate their outrage with President Barack Obama’s unilateral move on immigration, the solution galloped in: a bill from Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, an obscure back-bencher and large-animal vet.

Yoho’s quixotic bill, which nullifies Obama’s immigration actions, might help avoid a government shutdown on Dec. 11. The House narrowly passed it Thursday, and while the Senate doesn’t plan to act on it and Obama has vowed to veto it, Republican leadership hopes the vote defuses enough conservative anger at Obama that the conference can pass a funding bill next week without immigration language attached that could send the government into another shutdown.


So at the center of the immigration storm now stands a man who never held elective office before last year and ran his campaign out of a backyard shack, a tea party congressman who would almost certainly have found himself standing on the sidelines if he hadn’t filed his bill when he did.

Yoho introduced his Executive Amnesty Prevention Act (the name was later changed to Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act) the same November day that Obama issued his sweeping executive actions changing the enforcement of immigration laws to shield upwards of five million undocumented immigrants.

( Also on POLITICO: House sends Obama message with immigration vote)

At the time, Majority Whip Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) whip team was hard at work soliciting potential responses — and a lot of people had ideas. Conservatives were hungry to hit back. And Yoho already had a bill. His talk with the GOP leadership helped seal the deal.

After Yoho, a reliable conservative with scant legislative achievements to his name, presented the bill to Scalise’s whip team, and it ended up on a list of options in Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office. It made its way through leadership, eventually getting the stamp of approval from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

It had to be tweaked before it hit the floor. There were unintended consequences in the original drafting, which were pointed out by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), both immigration attorneys. The final version declares that presidential exemptions of categories of immigrants from deportations would be “null and void and without legal effect.”

After the bill snaked its way through leadership, it passed 219-197 with only seven Republicans opposed and three others voting present. Leaders hope this is the first step in an effort to keep the GOP from embracing another disastrous government shutdown. Conservatives got to vote against Obama, but without touching funding.

( Also on POLITICO: Lawmakers iron out money details for a deal)

“When people said they had all these ideas,” one senior House Republican involved in the process said, “Yoho was one of only a few who put it together. He had a good idea, and because it was a good idea, it got to the floor.”

Yoho, for his part, wasn’t looking for the spotlight. He says he was just investigating how Republicans could respond to Obama’s looming executive action on deportations, which the president had vowed to take since early summer.

“I started working on this back in June and July,” Yoho recalled Thursday. “We knew this was coming. We know he was gonna do this, so we wanted to be ready.”

The simple, four-page bill became the gateway for Yoho – who rocketed into Congress as a virtual unknown and unexpectedly ousted a 12-term senior lawmaker – to reenter the national spotlight for the first time since his shocking primary victory in 2012.

( Also on POLITICO: Boehner open to hearings on Garner's death)

Yoho won his seat by emphasizing his outsider credentials, drawing on his wide network as one of best-known large-animal veterinarians in Central Florida and filming an attention-grabbing ad of “career politicians” rolling in a pigpen and slinging mud. He regularly interrupted his campaign to tend to animals, in one case pausing between interviews to castrate several miniature horses. When he was done, he held up the lopped testicles and declared: “Washington needs a few more of these.”

Yet until Thursday’s vote, Yoho kept a mostly low profile: hardline conservative and willing to buck leadership (he voted against John Boehner for speaker) but not a loud, media-garnering firebrand — save some eyebrow-raising comments, such as his insistence that hitting the debt limit wouldn’t lead to a default.

He attributed the surprising success of his legislative effort to its resonance with “the sentiment of the American” people , though he added, “I think it’s interesting that you see that many people interested in this.”

Yoho defended his effort from charges that it was merely symbolic. Even a supporter of the bill’s contents, Rep. Matt Salmon (R.-Ariz.), when asked if Republicans were taking the bill seriously, replied: “I don’t even know if Ted is.”

“I had people say it was a symbolic gesture. We didn’t put it in for symbolism, but if they want to use it for a symbolic gesture, okay, let’s use it for that,” Yoho said. “And that symbolic gesture is, we’re going to hold the president accountable to the rule of law, to the Constitution.”

Democrats relentlessly criticized Yoho’s bill Thursday, characterizing it as legislation that would subject millions to deportation and as counterproductive for a body that did not take up immigration reform this year. In a floor speech, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called it “cold-hearted” – a comment that Yoho said offended him.

But Yoho found a compliment in an unlikely corner.

“We’ll agree or disagree with him on a number of different issues but I’ve found him to be a really a straight shooter,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who voted against Yoho’s bill on Thursday. “To me, he’s been a breath of fresh air.”