Without regard to the merits, I am finding the politics of immigration reform fascinating. Mitch McConnell praised the Judiciary Committee when they voted out their bill and he still says that he wants the Senate to pass a bill. Even John Cornyn of Texas is acting like he wants to vote for immigration reform. Yet, the backlash is white-hot.
The influential conservative blog RedState.com has already teed off against McConnell for signaling his support for the motion to proceed.
“So even as Obama is embroiled in the worst scandals of his administration, McConnell plans to bail him out with his second biggest legacy victory,” wrote RedState’s Daniel Horowitz. “He is opting to roll over and genuflect before The Schumercare Democrat Voting Act of 2013,” Horowitz wrote.
McConnell and Cornyn will support the “motion to proceed,” meaning that the Senate will be able to begin debate on immigration reform and consider amendments. There will be no filibuster on the front end. However, there are going to be some amendments that need to pass in order for the Republicans to allow a vote on final passage. These will probably be related to border security, although I am not sure what the actual bottom line is going to be. At a minimum, the Republicans will need to be able to plausibly argue that they toughened up the bill a bit before they’ll feel that they have the cover they need to vote for it.
I am amused by Daniel Horowitz’s formulation: The Schumercare Democrat Voting Act of 2013. The bill will not create a single new registered voter for at least thirteen years. The first presidential election where any presently undocumented workers will be able to participate will be in 2028.
More telling is Horowitz’s opposition to giving the president a victory. It’s not necessarily even important what the victory might entail, because allowing the president to prevail on anything is “bailing him out.”
That’s pretty representative of the current mindset in Republican circles, and it makes it very hard to accomplish anything, even if it is something that makes total sense and most Republican voters can support.
I’ve been saying for years, that if President Obama wants anything he might like to get passed to become law, he needs to come out to his next Press Conference dressed-up like Yosemite Sam with a couple of six-guns, and a bandoliers of bullets, and say, “I’m the most anti-health care, pro-life, anti-stimulus, pro-gun – Bang-Bang-Bangitty-Bang-Bang-BANG! – MoFu out there!
And I’ll shoot any of all y’all who says different!
Go ahead, I dare’s ya!!
I double-dare’s ya!!!
Go ahead… Make my day!!!!!”
Most Republicans support certain policies, but all Republicans support undermining the President.
Party over all. The good of the nation is at best a secondary consideration.
It’s the same with extremist idealogues of every stripe. Thought crime is the worst crime. Those who deviate must be excised, for the good of the cause, which is indistinguishable from the good of the nation. Those who toe the line are given great latitude (see, eg., the Catholic church; Mark Sanford).
Maybe McConnell and Cornyn are playing 11-Dimensional chess. The more they antagonize their base, the better their plan is working for them. As long as the bill will never pass the House, it’s a win-win for them, and we’re all being snookered. That’s how it works, isn’t it?
I sense sarcasm, but you are really describing reality.
Well, almost.
The Republican Establishment, meaning the leadership in Congress and at the RNC, plus the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street, all want this bill to pass. However, the majority of the House Republicans want no part of it.
This requires many-dimensional chess.
Whether or not Boehner can pass an acceptable bill (to the Democrats) is certainly in doubt, and it’s out of McConnell’s control anyway. House members are under pressure from their conservative constituencies to oppose immigration reform, but senators must run statewide and you can clearly see that senators with big Latino populations like Flake, McCain, and Cornyn are trying to get to yes. If the Senate passes something and it dies in the House, at least the senators have an argument to make. If it passes in the House, all the better.
Here’s the game. Pass a bill in judiciary with significant bipartisan support. Then argue that the bill needs to be harsher. Make it harsher and then pass it. That’s how many dimensions? Not 11, but more than two.
Then the ball is in Boehner’s court. He’s clueless, but he’ll aim to pass something that has at least some Democratic support. If that proves impossible, he may allow a bill that has majority Democratic support. More likely, though, he will only get one bite at that apple and will want the Dems’ support on the final reconciled bill, not the initial bill (or bills) that need to be reconciled with the Senate version.
So, Boehner will probably pretend that the senate bill is totally unacceptable but will allow a conference committee to reconcile the two bills. Once it goes to conference, the conservatives will begin losing battles because it is going to require a majority of Democrats in the House in order to pass. At that point, Boehner will have to confront the majority of his caucus.
It may not work, but this is the only way this could work.
I try never to engage in pure sarcasm. It seems to me that immigration reform is intended by the Republicans to fail, and that what’s happening in the Senate is all for show for the benefit of the Republican senators, like you say. I think that Republicans have much more cause to engage in this type of bluffing (i.e. it has net strategic benefit) than Obama does.
There is some theater involved in what’s going on, but McConnell and Priebus and the vast bulk of big-donors want to pass immigration reform. Boehner wants to pass it. That doesn’t mean that Boehner has some awesome strategy to get it done. He still seems clueless about how to proceed.
To see a parallel example, think back to 2008, when Congress was considering granting the telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for warrantless wiretapping. The Democrats were under the most impassioned and unwavering pressure not to grant immunity until at least after a thorough investigation. The problem was high-level complicity in the program on the part of the Democratic leadership. Harry Reid developed this elaborate strategy in how the base bill was configured so that he could argue that he was trying to strip immunity out even though he was assuring that it stayed in. I forget all the details, but I remember being on the phone with his office as he tried to pull the wool over our eyes. They were never going to blame the telcos for cooperating and they were too complicit to demand a full airing of what happened. So, we got a grand kabuki theater than did what they needed to do while minimizing the political fallout for it.
That’s basically what Boehner needs to do to his base. He’ll have the House create something that is far more acceptable to his base than what the Senate produces, and then he’ll arrange things in a way to assure that something much closer to the Senate bill emerges from conference. And then he’ll break the Hastert Rule and take the heat.
That has to be the strategy, although I wouldn’t trust him to pull it off because he seems incapable of throwing his weight around.
By the way, the Senate just defeated the filibuster 82-15. No Roll Call available, yet, but all ‘no’ votes were Republican. I don’t know who didn’t vote, but with 46 members, that’s something like 31-15 in favor of opening debate and voting on amendments.
Mmm Mmmm Mmmm. Noontime schadenfreude is so refreshing. Especially when turtle soup is on the menu.
Oh I disagree. This bill will mint many new voters, as long as it doesn’t pass. Almost 50% of eligible latino voters currently don’t vote. A declaration of war on their entire ethnic group by the House republicans might provide a certain motivation to get to the ballot box.
A fourteen year path to citizenship? That sounds extreme to me and I’m neutral/lean conservative on the issue.
The only way I could support this bill with that many visas is if we lowered the pathway to citizenship; or even better, gave them amnesty immediately.
The comment thread on that (and most) Hill article(s) was scary. A few suggested Obama started the NSA leaks to distract from passing his immigration bill. Now THAT’S 11 dimensional chess. I’m sure that commenter believes Obama is an incompetent boob in the next breath.
I say 8 years to a green card is little long. However, the Republican party is about to concede the 2016 elections with one vote. A vote to block Immigration Reform means Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton need to start planning their Presidential Ceremonies.
You’re right, that really is what this is all about isn’t it? It all comes down to political gain and not what’s best for the American worker, especially lower income Black workers that are already struggling but will have to compete with these people for a job. Bottom line, Barack Obama got 71% of the Latino vote and now he owes them. We are too blinded by tribal loyalism to BO to see that this is not in our best interest. Just like NAFTA was not in our best interest.
I think lower white workers will too have compete for those jobs too. Maybe there should be a ban on rural manufactures setting up cornfield/wheat field manufacturing plants. Where the majority of the workers are white and not Black, Hispanic, or Asian. You ever seen a Toyota, Nissan, BMW plant built in Chicago, Cleveland?
I believe this “black worker” can’t compete with Immigrants is straight out of the RNC handbook. I think many Unions see a good chance at making Immigrants new members.
Forget about Black workers, how does this help AMERICAN workers in general? It’s not just low wage Black workers that are going to be harmed by this but low wage workers period!. How do you compete with someone who will take $10 an hour with no benefits for a job that’s worth $20 an hour with benefits?
This is NAFTA all over again, that was supposed to help US workers as well.
And again you mention what’s good for the unions and what’s good for the Democratic party but it’s what’s good for the people that I’m concerned about. I don’t see much difference between DEms and Repugs. Dems just talk a good game to get elected and then they ignore us until they need us in the next election. Your comment about Hillary Clinton is a perfect example. I still haven’t forgotten the racist campaign that she ran against Barack Obama. She did everything that she could to divide the party by race. BO was left with no choice but to hire her as SOS in an attempt to bring the party back together. There is this mistaken idea that what’s good for Democrats is automatically good for Blacks but if that were true why haven’t we heard a single Democrat mention Black unemployment for years? Where is the plan for urban renewal? It’s all about solidifying the Hispanic vote and once they do they’ll take Hispanics for granted too.
The only Union that I see is against Immigration is the ICE Union, USCIS union, and around here the Carpenters Union. We should be working to unionize as many industries and trades as possible.
I find the politics of immigration reform fascinating as well. Especially the part where we don’t realize that this is COMPLETELY against the economic interests of the Black community. Black unemployment is TWICE the rate of Whites and yet we sit here talking about how we can grant amnesty to 11 million (or is it really 20m?) unskilled, low wage workers so that they can fight with low wage Blacks over the shiggitty jobs that are left? I have an idea for a thread Booman, “When do Blacks become the priority of this presidency?”