{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://yoho.house.gov//media-center/in-the-news/yoho", "Ted Yoho's YOLO moment", "2014-12-04", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "FL", "Ted Yoho", "Y000065", "yoho.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "As Republicans searched for a way to demonstrate their outrage with President Barack Obama\u2019s unilateral move on immigration, the solution galloped in: a bill from Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, an obscure back-bencher and large-animal vet.\nYoho\u2019s quixotic bill, which nullifies Obama\u2019s immigration actions, might help avoid a government shutdown on Dec. 11. The House narrowly passed it Thursday, and while the Senate doesn\u2019t 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.\nSo 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\u2019t filed his bill when he did.\nYoho 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.\n(Also on POLITICO: House sends Obama message with immigration vote)\nAt the time, Majority Whip Steve Scalise\u2019s (R-La.) whip team was hard at work soliciting potential responses \u2014 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.\nAfter Yoho, a reliable conservative with scant legislative achievements to his name, presented the bill to Scalise\u2019s whip team, and it ended up on a list of options in Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy\u2019s office. It made its way through leadership, eventually getting the stamp of approval from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).\nIt 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 \u201cnull and void and without legal effect.\u201d\nAfter 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.\n(Also on POLITICO: Lawmakers iron out money details for a deal)\n\u201cWhen people said they had all these ideas,\u201d one senior House Republican involved in the process said, \u201cYoho 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.\u201d\nYoho, for his part, wasn\u2019t looking for the spotlight. He says he was just investigating how Republicans could respond to Obama\u2019s looming executive action on deportations, which the president had vowed to take since early summer.\n\u201cI started working on this back in June and July,\u201d Yoho recalled Thursday. \u201cWe knew this was coming. We know he was gonna do this, so we wanted to be ready.\u201d\nThe simple, four-page bill became the gateway for Yoho \u2013 who rocketed into Congress as a virtual unknown and unexpectedly ousted a 12-term senior lawmaker \u2013 to reenter the national spotlight for the first time since his shocking primary victory in 2012.\n(Also on POLITICO: Boehner open to hearings on Garner's death)\nYoho 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 \u201ccareer politicians\u201d 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: \u201cWashington needs a few more of these.\u201d\nYet until Thursday\u2019s 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 \u2014 save some eyebrow-raising comments, such as his insistence that hitting the debt limit wouldn\u2019t lead to a default.\nHe attributed the surprising success of his legislative effort to its resonance with \u201cthe sentiment of the American\u201d people , though he added, \u201cI think it\u2019s interesting that you see that many people interested in this.\u201d\nYoho defended his effort from charges that it was merely symbolic. Even a supporter of the bill\u2019s contents, Rep. Matt Salmon (R.-Ariz.), when asked if Republicans were taking the bill seriously, replied: \u201cI don\u2019t even know if Ted is.\u201d\n\u201cI had people say it was a symbolic gesture. We didn\u2019t put it in for symbolism, but if they want to use it for a symbolic gesture, okay, let\u2019s use it for that,\u201d Yoho said. \u201cAnd that symbolic gesture is, we\u2019re going to hold the president accountable to the rule of law, to the Constitution.\u201d\nDemocrats relentlessly criticized Yoho\u2019s 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 \u201ccold-hearted\u201d \u2013 a comment that Yoho said offended him.\nBut Yoho found a compliment in an unlikely corner.  \n\t\u00a0\n\u201cWe\u2019ll agree or disagree with him on a number of different issues but I\u2019ve found him to be a really a straight shooter,\u201d said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who voted against Yoho\u2019s bill on Thursday. \u201cTo me, he\u2019s been a breath of fresh air.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://yoho.house.gov//media-center/in-the-news/yoho"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9322380647063255, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}