Way back in 2013, when the Senate reached a compromise and passed a big bipartisan bill on immigration, Speaker Boehner refused to bring it up for a vote, saying it wouldn't have the support of a majority of Republicans in the House. Would the bill have passed the chamber with the support of Democrats and a handful of Republicans with large Hispanic constituencies? It's hard to say. But Boehner might be regretting the decision not to find out.

Boehner explained his thinking at the time: As the speaker, it's his job to represent the interests of the majority party. If most Republicans opposed a bill, he wouldn't bring it up, unless he absolutely had to. Well, now it looks like he has to. In order to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security past this week, he might have to ask the chamber to vote on an appropriations bill that does not rescind President Obama's actions deferring deportation for undocumented parents of citizens and legal residents. Most of his caucus will probably vote against the bill.

As a result, Boehner will be in the awkward position of relying on Democrats to provide money for the department. Conservatives within the Republican Party will say he sided with the enemy to abet Obama's executive takeover of immigration policy. If he'd managed to get an immigration bill through the House two years ago, none of this would have happened. And now, even if a funding bill is passed, Congress will be no closer to fixing a system all sides agree is broken.

What's in Wonkbook: 1) Republicans' immigration stalemate 2) Opinions, including Edsall on gentrification 3) Rahm Emanuel in run-off, and more

Chart of the day: Childhood obesity has swept the world in less than a generation.  Roberto A. Ferdman in The Washington Post. The move would allow the Senate to approve funding the Department of Homeland Security. "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters he was prepared to move swiftly to extend funding for DHS through the fiscal year in a bill that is not contingent on Republican demands to repeal President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. ... But House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) did not immediately warm to the proposal, and it was not clear whether he could marshal enough backing in his chamber to complete the deal to keep DHS open beyond Friday, when its spending authority expires." David Nakamura and Sean Sullivan in The Washington Post.

Whether the legislation would pass the House is another question, though. "Bringing legislation to the floor that would only pass with help from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrats could significantly undermine the Speaker’s credibility with his 245-member caucus — the largest majority the GOP has had in generations. House Republicans will huddle in a private meeting in the Capitol basement on Wednesday morning to discuss their options, and it’s likely to be a tense gathering." Scott Wong in The Hill.

It's a bitter lesson in arithmetic for Republicans. "For all their victories in the midterm elections, Republicans have been loath to accept the limits of their success. Even with 54 of the Senate's 100 seats, they still lack enough votes to overcome filibusters, the bill-killing tactic that Democrats are now using against Republicans after years of being on the receiving end. Republicans confronted that cold reality on Tuesday. McConnell publicly conceded he can't force Senate Democrats to allow action on a contentious House-passed bill." Charles Babington in the Associated Press.

And a familiar predicament for Boehner. "His massive majority is packed with conservatives uninterested in any hint of compromise with the minority, but such deal-making is required to get any must-pass legislation through the more narrowly-divided Senate. ... In 2013, despite his own admission that it was not his chosen strategy, he capitulated to members' demands that they shut down the government over objections to funding President Obama's health care law. Before that, however, he and his team crafted solutions on a bipartisan basis to avoid a default on the nation's debt, despite pressure from some in his conference to keep fighting." Sarah Mimms and Daniel Newhauser in National Journal.

MacGILLIS: McConnell's priority is winning elections, not reforming the immigration system. "McConnell wanted the party to project a more reasonable image for a single reason: to improve its chances of winning in the next election cycle. Not in order to restore voters’ faith in Washington, or to tackle the nation’s biggest problems, or, heck, to burnish his own legacy with some major legislative accomplishments. No, his driving goal, now that he had finally become majority leader after 30 years in the Senate, was for his party to win the next election. ... But he has shown no sign of taking on the underlying issue that has brought the country to this latest brink: a broken immigration system. That is hardly surprising, because McConnell has made plain in the past that this is an issue that he sees as distinctly unhelpful when it comes winning elections." Slate.

2. Top opinions

EDSALL: Gentrification will change the structure of the Democratic Party. "The nation’s urban centers are changing rapidly. Blacks are moving out, into the suburbs or to other regions of the country. Poverty is spreading from the urban core to the inner suburbs. White flight has slowed and in some cases reversed. Nationally, Hispanics have displaced blacks as the dominant urban minority. The political impact of these changes is primarily being felt within the Democratic Party, where the balance of power is shifting. As well-educated, younger liberal whites gain strength in some cities, their power base will be amplified... Insofar as the black population becomes diffuse, black leaders will have to grapple with a decline in black-majority districts, especially city council districts, in cities with declining black populations." The New York Times.

PORTER: A Pacific trade deal might be the least bad result for U.S. workers. "If we have learned anything in the two decades since Nafta, it is that no trade agreement can protect American workers on the losing side of globalization. There is a place for trade agreements: They apply rules to globalization. Without them, globalization would probably work worse, not only for the United States but also for its trading partners." The New York Times.

FLAVELLE: Wisconsin's economy has sputtered under Gov. Scott Walker. "Maybe the most interesting thing about Walker's economic record is the absence of any noticeable impact on his as-yet-unannounced presidential campaign. That suggests that party leaders are more interested in Walker's actions than their consequences. ... Measured by relative economic outcomes, Walker's tenure falls somewhere between lackluster and a failure. The next few months will reveal whether that matters to his 2016 presidential aspirations." Bloomberg View.

Electronic cigarettes can protect the public from nicotine addiction, writes Michael B. Siegel, a public health professor at Boston University. "When electronic cigarettes came to the U.S. about 2007, I was skeptical. My assumption was they were a ploy by the tobacco industry to hook more people into smoking under the guise of being a safer product... E-cigarettes have dramatic potential for reducing disease and death caused by smoking. Yet many in the antismoking movement—in which I have been involved for decades—are conducting a misleading campaign against these products. And this campaign may be doing harm to public health." The Wall Street Journal.

Emanuel will face a run-off for reelection. "Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fell short of clinching a second term on Tuesday and was forced into a six-week runoff campaign against liberal challenger Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia in a race that has become the latest clash in the nationwide fight to define the Democratic Party." Sean Sullivan in The Washington Post.

Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission are still working out their proposal on net neutrality. "A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission wants to see changes that could narrow the scope of new net neutrality rules set for a vote on Thursday. Mignon Clyburn, one of three Democrats on the FCC, has asked Chairman Tom Wheeler to roll back some of his provisions before the full commission votes on them, FCC officials said. ... Clyburn's changes would leave in place the central and most controversial component of Wheeler’s rules — the notion that broadband Internet service should be reclassified so that it can be treated as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, similar to utilities like phone lines." Julian Hattem in The Hill.

As expected, Obama has vetoed a bill on the Keystone XL pipeline. "The third veto of Obama’s presidency exposed his new political reality — unified Republican control of Congress that will force him to confront critics directly in a way he’s rarely had to before and explain his stands to the American public." Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson in The Washington Post.

Also as expected, the federal government will not charge George Zimmerman with a hate crime. "The Justice Department on Tuesday closed its investigation into the shooting death three years ago of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager in a hoodie who became a symbol of racial profiling and the face of a protest movement, without filing hate-crime charges against the gunman." Lizette Alvarez in The New York Times.

Climate change will force the relocation of an Alaskan village of 400 people. "The question now facing the town, the state of Alaska, and the nation is whether to move the people of Kivalina to a safer location nearby, either inland or further down the coast — and who would pay upwards of a hundred million dollars to do it. It’s a question already facing Kivalina and a handful of other native Alaskan villages, and in the coming decades could apply to numerous other towns along U.S. coastlines." Chris Mooney in The Washington Post.

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