The chances that comprehensive immigration reform will ever pass the House are very slim. However, the easy conventional wisdom about what’s happening now — which holds that the conservative base controls the outcome completely, that the death of reform is preordained, and that House Republicans are only looking for a way to kill reform blamelessly — is overly simplistic and is increasingly looking like it’s just wrong.
To understand what’s really happening, the key question to ask is: Are House Republicans just playing for time, or are they actually grappling with the issue of immigration reform and what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants?
My answer to that question is the former. Time and again, Republicans have shown that they aren't interested in governance, merely bomb-throwing rhetoric and obstruction. If they can't completely control every aspect of legislation, they'll exact whatever price they can and burn the rest down. It's been this way since 2006, and it will continue. So what's Greg's theory that this time is different?
In a story that deserves a bit of play today, the Daily Pilot reports that California Rep. Kevin McCarthy — who as the GOP whip is a member of the House leadership team — addressed immigration reform in a meeting of constituents. In some ways, what he said wasn’t surprising: He repeated that the borders must be secure first, and stopped short of supporting citizenship.
But McCarthy came out for legal status, crucially putting it this way: “What you then have to address is the 11 million that are here considered illegal.” This comes after GOP Reps. Aaron Schock and Daniel Webster also embraced varying but significant levels of reform earlier this month.
OK, I can see why a California Republican would see immigration reform in particular as important. But that means McCarthy is the exception to the rule. Remember, we have multiple Republicans who have openly said that if the leadership brings the Senate bill up for a vote, Orange Julius will be replaced.
ABC News gets it right today: “Republicans may be changing minds on reform.” Is this all a big ruse designed to make Republicans look serious about the issue before killing reform outright? Maybe. But maybe not. As Simon Rosenberg suggests, we should treat all of this seriously, acknowledging Republicans have been entrenched in an anti-amnesty position for years and that it is at least possible that House Republicans (perhaps for purely political reasons, but that would be movement nonetheless) will grapple with how to move from there to support for reform.
Those who glibly say reform is definitely dead no matter what will read the above as optimism. It isn’t optimism at all: far and away the most likely outcome remains that reform will die. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t describe what’s happening now accurately. And the conventional wisdom has it wrong.
OK, so granted, there's a slim chance it'll pass instead of no chance. That is significant from a journalism and political viewpoint, yes. From a practical viewpoint, no.
But Sargent is correct on the technical issues. Not that it's going to help. For instance, if this claim by Dem Luis Gutierrez is true, then there's a direct danger to allowing the Senate bill to come up in the House: it would pass easily.
Forty to 50 House Republicans will support immigration reform, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) predicted Thursday.
Gutierrez said many of the Republicans supportive of immigration reform don’t want to be identified, but he insisted they would support comprehensive immigration reform.
“If they ask me today, go find those 40 to 50 Republicans, I’ll tell them I found them. I know where they’re at,” Gutierrez said in an interview with Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post.
End game, right there. So no, the Senate bill will never get a vote, and the House GOP will play out the clock.
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