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Renee Ellmers is in a highly unusual position for a House Republican: She is the only GOP incumbent facing a primary challenge centered on her support for immigration reform.

The North Carolina Republican is one of a handful of House GOP lawmakers to publicly advocate legalizing the millions of immigrants who are here illegally. Her views sparked a Republican challenge from economic commentator Frank Roche, who is skewering Ellmers for favoring amnesty.

Most observers think Ellmers a nurse and former tea party favorite is likely to win the intraparty fight on Tuesday. Still, reform advocates, particularly those on the center-right, are closely watching her race as a test case of how much the politically charged issue of immigration will matter in GOP primaries. Republicans had feared that conservatives, stoked by grass-roots anger and help from outside groups, would descend on the districts of members who sided with the reformers.

(ELECTION CENTRAL: Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio primaries)

But in a surprise to some, Ellmers fight has been the exception to the rule in this years House GOP primary contests. Despite conservative threats, the slew of anti-immigration primary challenges for the most part simply havent materialized. Of course, Democrats could still badger Republicans on immigration come November.

Filing deadlines for more than 80 percent of sitting House Republicans elapsed as of the end of April. And advocates closely tracking GOP primaries could name only Ellmers race as one where an incumbent House Republican is facing a primary precisely over his or her immigration stance.

Reps. Sam Johnson and John Carter of Texas two Republican negotiators in a bipartisan House group that painstakingly tried to negotiate a House immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship breezed through their March 4 primaries without much being made of their advocacy. Johnson walloped his challenger by 80 percent, and Carter didnt even have an opponent.

(Also on POLITICO: Little hope for Keystone vote)

The Mark Zuckerberg-backed advocacy group FWD.us argued earlier this year that only one incumbent congressional Republican lost to a primary opponent primarily because of immigration in the past decade: then-Utah Rep. Chris Cannon to Rep. Jason Chaffetz in 2008.

Its essentially a nonissue in most of these races, said Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the Michael Bloomberg-backed Partnership for a New American Economy, which supports immigration reform. But he added: It concerns me any time that someone who is very, very good on this issue is challenged.

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The race where immigration matters

first amendment rights
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First Amendment Monument Music Video by Daniel Brouse
This song was written on the 1st Amendment Monument, Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA. For free MP3 downloads, lyrics and chords visit http://idea.membran...

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A Constitutional loophole allows the state, influenced by religious groups and business interests, to go on a censorship spree

In 1988, India became the first country to ban The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, following pressure from leaders of the Muslim community. Today, India continues its banning spree, reflecting the deep and growing unease with the freedom to express, an unease which goes back to the time when the Constitution was 17 months old. Since then, twenty-five books have been officially banned, including Joseph Lellywelds Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, James Laines Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, and Aubrey Menens The Ramayana.

One might have thought that those who fought hard for Indias freedom would have also fought for the right to free speech in the framing of the Constitution. Yet, unlike Americas First Amendment, which imposed restrictions on the state from curbing free speech, such restrictions were not put in place in the First Amendment to the Constitution of India.

Indias First Amendment, vigorously contested in Parliament by both the Left and Right parties, allowed the state to make laws in the interests of security, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, and defamation or incitement to an offence.

Since the 1950s, there has been a shift in who calls for bans. Unlike the state which exercised its right to ban books publishers, religious groups, caste groups, and corporates have claimed offence and sought bans on not only books, but also films, plays, and music. In many ways, the First Amendment, has also legitimised the peoples right to take offence and seek bans.

Over the past three months, five books have disappeared from Indian bookstores books on corporates, religion, and caste.

The pulping of all copies of The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger, put the focus back on who seeks a ban. Reliance, the largest business house in India, brought a legal suit against the authors of Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis, and has asked them to withdraw the book or face criminal and civil charges for defamation.

In 1991, as India embarked on economic reforms, two things were happening almost simultaneously.

As William Mazarella says in Censorium: Many explained the censorship struggles of this period as symptoms of a clash between two formations: on one side, the process of globalisation and economic liberalisation that brought a deluge of mass communication and, on the other side, the rise to mainstream power of an aggressively conservative form of Hindu nationalism the intensification of censorship was one outcome.

However, Hindu nationalism was just one aspect of this intolerance. A whole new cast of characters has appeared on the scene, taking offence to everything. The state has played a willing accomplice in the ban game, and courts decisions have often not helped.

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Indias unease with free speech

Hillary Clinton Smackdown in Congress, A WWE Event --WorldWide Embarrassment
Maggie Haberman talks to Michael Smerconish about her article on Hillary Clinton #39;s difficult relationship with the media. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ...

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