Do Democrats in Congress want a future without Nancy Pelosi as face of the franchise? Fort Worth Star Telegram Replacing Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives is a subject that Fort Worth Congressman Marc Veasey may be exploring. I think that for this particular Congress that Nancy is going to be the minority leader ... |
Late last month, Congressman Luis Gutirrez (D-Ill.), introduced the American Hope Act, H.R. 3591, with 116 co-sponsors, all Democrats.
The bill would provide conditional permanent resident status for undocumented aliens who were brought to the U.S. before their 18th birthday, which would permit them to live and work here legally for three years and put them on a path to Legal Permanent Resident status and citizenship.
Such bills are referred to as DREAM Acts, an acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act.
It might be more accurate, however, to call this bill The False Hope Act.
What about DACA?
On June 15, 2012, former president Barack ObamaBarack ObamaOvernight Tech: Senate panel approves FCC nominees | Dem group invests in progressive startups | Tech groups rip Trump immigration plan Russian PM: New sanctions amount to 'full-scale trade war' America's divisions: The greatest strategic vulnerability of our time MORE established a program to offer temporary lawful status to undocumented aliens who were brought here as children, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The DACA application process required them to admit alienage, concede unlawful presence, and provide their addresses, which puts them at risk if an enforcement-minded president decides to deport them.
Also, ICE officers may check the immigration status of family members when they arrest DACA participants, which could result in entire families being deported.
Threat to DACA
In a letter dated June 29, 2017, eleven state attorney generals asked U.S. Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) SessionsKelly called Sessions to assure him job is safe: report Overnight Regulation: Senate confirms Trump pick to labor board | Court lets states defend ozone rule | Regulator seeks input on changing 'Volcker Rule' US attorney fired by Trump sends well-wishes to new FBI director MORE to phase out the DACA program. They warned him that if he does not agree to do this by September 5, 2017, they will amend a pending lawsuit in a Federal District Court to include a challenge to DACA.
Even if Sessions rejects the request to phase out the program, the administration apparently does not intend to defend DACA in court if it is included in the Texas lawsuit.
American Hope Act
Gutirrezs bill last month would allow undocumented aliens to apply for conditional permanent resident status if they:
Why hasnt a DREAM Act bill been enacted?
No one knows for sure. I think it is due mainly to the fact that the number of undocumented aliens who would benefit from such legislation could get quite large. Also, the fact that they are innocent of wrongdoing with respect to being here unlawfully does not make it in our national interest to let them stay. This is particularly problematic with respect to the American Hope Act. Section 4 of this bill includes a waiver that applies to some serious criminal exclusion grounds.
Although estimates for the number of undocumented aliens who could be impacted are not available yet for the American Hope Act, they are available for similar bills that were introduced this year, the Recognizing America's Children Act, H.R. 1468, and the Dream Act of 2017, S. 1615.
The Migration Policy Institute estimates that potentially 2,504,000 aliens would be able to meet the minimum age at arrival and years of residence thresholds for the House bill and 3,338,000 for the Senate bill. However, some of them would need to complete educational requirements before they could apply.
Trump is supporting a revised version of the RAISE Act which would reduce the annual number of legal immigrants from one million to 500,000 over the next decade. It does not seem likely therefore that he will be receptive to a program that would make a very substantial increase in the number of legal immigrants.
Not merit-based.
The American Hope Act would treat all immigrant youth who were brought here as children the same, regardless of educational level, military service, or work history. Gutirrez said in a press release, We are not picking good immigrants versus bad immigrants or deserving versus undeserving, we are working to defend those who live among us and should have a place in our society.
This is inconsistent with the skills-based point system in the revised version of the RAISE Act that Trump is supporting. It would prioritize immigrants who are most likely to succeed in the United States and expand the economy. Points would be based on factors such as education, English-language ability, age, and achievements.
Thus, Democrats American Hope Act as presently written is very likely to suffer the same fate as the other DREAM Acts.
Success requires a fresh, new approach, and the approach taken by the revised RAISE Act might work by basing eligibility on national interest instead of on a desire to help the immigrants. Certainly, it would be more likely to get Trumps support.
Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years; he subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.
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Democrats introduce another 'false hope' act to immigrants - The Hill (blog)
Jeffrey Kuhn, chair of the Democratic Committee in Bethlehem, is appealing Tuesday's decision on candidates his committee has endorsed.
Jeffrey Kuhn, chair of the Democratic Committee in Bethlehem, is appealing Tuesday's decision on candidates his committee has endorsed.
Bethlehem Democrats appeal decision on candidates
BETHLEHEM The town's Democratic Committee's picks for highway superintendent and town council are appealing last week's court decision which disqualified them from the primaries.
Candidates Daniel Coffey and Giles Wagoner along with committee chair Jeffrey Kuhn and member Pamela Skripak appealed Albany County Judge Michael Mackey's Tuesday ruling that invalided their Board of Election petitions, clearing the way for rival candidates George Harder and Daniel Morin to run in November on the Democratic line.
The Albany judge ruled that the petitions for their candidacies were not signed properly and thus invalid.
The Appellate Court will hear the case at 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 24.
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Bethlehem Democrats appeal decision on candidates - Albany Times Union
With President Donald Trumps Dr. Demento impersonation undermining his own party, the road should be open for Democrats to sweep the next election cycle. And, for the first time since their horrific defeat of 2016, not only nationally but also in the states, the Democrats are slowly waking up to the reality that they need to go beyond the ritual Trump-bashing.
No one will compare the recently released A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages slogan to Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal, or even Newt Gingrichs Contract for America. One Bernie Sanders supporter called it anodyne, focus-grouped, consultant-generated pablum. Yet, at least it attempted to identify the party with something other than Trump hatred, which is all most Americans think the Democrats are all about.
The three Democratic parties
Before this new approach can work, Democrats need to decide what kind of party they are, or what coalition can bring them back into power. None of the present factions is strong enough, by themselves, to win consistently on a national basis; some accommodation between often opposing tendencies must be found. Finally, there needs to be a credible message that derives not from carefully orchestrated focus groups and surveys the Hillary Clinton approach but rather one that resonates with the very middle- and working-class voters that the party needs to win back.
Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the traditional Democratic Party has combined some degree of social moderation albeit often too timid on issues related to gays and racial minorities with a unifying message of economic growth, national security and upward mobility. Although business interests sometimes supported them, the old Democrats primarily directed their appeal to urban, and later suburban, middle- and working-class voters.
By the 1970s, many of these voters were headed rightward, as Democrats positions on social issues, defense and civil rights moved sharply to the left. Seeking to make up for some of the loss of some traditional FDR voters, Bill Clinton reoriented the party to include the rising class of information workers who were often socially liberal but fiscally conservative. But Clintons political genius and down-home image also helped Democrats retain some New Deal working-class support, even while forging stronger ties to tech companies, the rising professional class and Wall Street.
The third faction, the resurgent left, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, grew out of the clear failure of the second Democratic Party, led by its elite wing, to address the consequences of neoliberal economics, notably increased inequality, reduced social mobility and, to some extent, environmental degradation. To these activists, the Clintonian party is not much more than a light version of mainstream Republicanism.
Only a coalition can work
The fundamental challenge of the Democrats today is winning back the voters who, for a host of reasons, both understandable and deplorable, supported Donald Trump. This makes the old Democratic message as reflected in the Better Deal key to unlocking the Electoral College and winning back its status as a national, rather than a bicoastal, party. As the New Deal party has declined, the Democrats have lost touch with potentially supportive voters in much of the Midwest, as well as the Intermountain West, the Great Plains and the South. There many still doggedly favor Trump, who, for all his inane blustering, at least seems committed to bring new jobs to hard-hit communities, as evidenced in the recent massive Foxconn investment in Wisconsin.
The Clintonian party lacks the street cred to play the populist hand against Trumpian intrusion. When Hillary Clinton started her talk about deplorables and focused largely on cultural issues, she demonstrated dramatically how much she had diverged from the popular instincts of her far savvier husband. Lets face it, like Secretary Clinton, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the consigliere of Wall Street, is a bizarre choice to serve as a populist avatar. The Better Way attack on monopolies, aimed mostly at GOP-leaning pharmaceutical and industrial companies, is particularly suspect. Revealingly, these efforts do not seem to include prosecuting the increasingly dominant tech oligarchs, clearly the antitrust challenge of our time, with whom they are increasingly tied financially.
On economic issues, the third Democratic Party, the one closer to full-throated socialism, has far more credibility than the Clintonians. But the far-left Democrats, who often brook no diversity on issues, hold to positions anti-defense, hostility toward police, piously green that directly conflict with the attitudes and interests of the putative Trump voters. A worker at an Ohio factory may embrace a single-payer health care system, protectionist trade policies, raising taxes on the rich, and free college without wanting to raise energy prices, weaken the military, undermine policing, open the borders to all comers, tolerate more erosion of jobs that are moving overseas and impose transgender bathrooms on socially conservative communities.
Ultimately, like any political party in this polarized country, success lies in finding ways to bridge gaps among the warring factions. A Better Deal may be a decent first step, but, without reuniting its factions, it is hardly enough to engineer a new brand of politics, and another age of Democratic dominance.
Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).
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Reconciling the three Democratic parties - OCRegister
ALISO VIEJO, Calif. Democrats are increasingly conflicted about how forcefully to press the issue of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Fearful of alienating voters who appear more concerned about the economy and health care, Democrats campaigning in districts across the country are de-emphasizing Russia in their rhetoric and some are warning that a persistent focus on the Russia investigation could backfire.
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In the races where Im working, I think voters think that Russia is important and that the questions need to get answered, Bill Burton, a veteran Democratic consultant, said at a political convention this past weekend. But theyre mostly sick of hearing about it, and they want to hear politicians talk about things that are more directly important in their lives.
In a state that is critical to the partys efforts to retake the House, Darry Sragow, a Democratic strategist whose California Target Book handicaps races in California, called Russia a distraction and said Democrats are going to be in deep, deep trouble if they dont start talking about what voters care about.
We need to talk about what people think about when they wake up in the morning, and its not Russia, Sragow said. The more we talk about stuff that voters dont truly care about in their daily lives it confirms that the Democratic Partys brain has been eaten by the elites in Washington who have been sitting fat and happy for a lot of years while working Americans have lost their jobs and lost confidence in the future.
Public polling suggests the electorate is deeply suspicious of Trumps ties to Russia but also tired of the months-long inquiry into possible collusion between the presidents campaign and Russia. According to a Quinnipiac University Poll released this week, 63 percent of American voters believe Moscow interfered in the 2016 election, and in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll last month, more than half of voters said it was inappropriate for Donald Trump Jr. to meet with an attorney linked to the Russian government.
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But a plurality of voters in the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll said Congress should not seek to impeach Trump. An earlier Harvard-Harris Poll found nearly two-thirds of American voters say investigations into Trump and Russia are hurting the country.
In that polling, wary Democrats see shades of 1998, when Republicans were widely believed to have overreached on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, losing five House seats in the midterm elections.
Obviously, you dont know how everythings going to come out and what cycles were going to go through with the independent counsel and the report, said Mark Penn, the Harvard-Harris Polls co-director and former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton. But if you were to ask me as of today, Democrats are doing a lot better on health care than theyre doing on Russia Theres a risk that they repeat 98, that the Republicans create a campaign on issues and [Democrats] get tagged too much with only being about negative arguments.
The Russia investigation has proved alluring to Democrats for both the seriousness of the allegations and for the angry response it has provoked from Trump. And for Democrats bidding to unseat Republican incumbents even those who have generally supported the investigation the various probes have provided a platform on which to yoke Republican House members to Trump.
Brian Flynn, one of several Democrats challenging Rep. John Faso in New York, said, The effect of Russia isnt people think John Faso is involved in Russia What it is doing is showing the betrayal of the people who put them in office, and that is how were using it.
Still, Flynn said, I dont talk a lot about it Were not going to win on an anti-Trump, anti-corruption approach.
Hans Keirstead, one of several Democrats challenging Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in California, said Russia is not the story its an opener. Running against Rohrabacher, a fierce defender of Russia on Capitol Hill, Keirstead said, Russia just shows he is paying attention to things that are not district-focused.
Even so, the Russia issue and its near-constant stream of developments remain a staple for many Democrats. On Thursday night, critics of Rep. Michael Burgess confronted the Republican lawmaker on Trumps Russia ties at a town hall in Texas, while in California, Democrat Doug Applegate took to Twitter to mock GOP Rep. Darrell Issa as Trumps lapdog.
Earlier this week at a gymnasium in Rohrabachers Orange County district, several hundred activists joined in a game of Who said it? Dana or Putin?
In a room off the gym floor, Rep. Ted Lieu said, I think it depends what happens with this special counsel investigation No one knows. It could be issue No. 8 in voters minds, or it could be No. 1 if they find collusion or people start getting indicted.
Democratic National Party Chirman Tom Perez speaks at a rally to protest against President Donald Trump's firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey outside the White House on May 10. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Later, at the podium, Lieu told the crowd, Here is a fun fact for you: the first article of impeachment for Nixon was obstruction of justice.
Scott Simpson, a Democratic consultant who works on races throughout the country, doubted focusing attention on the Russia investigation would alienate voters or hurt Democrats in the midterm elections. But he said voters are not attuned to Russia and that health care is just so much more top of mind.
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, whos running for governor, was even more direct in a recent appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe. The Russia investigation, he said, doesnt do anything for Democrats at all Its a loser.
Its not just the complicated nature of the Russia probes and their distance from many voters immediate concerns, that are leading Democrats to question the value of the issue on the campaign trail. Most voters who consider Russia a significant issue will tie the controversy to Trump, not members of Congress, said Colin Rogero, a Washington-based Democratic media consultant.
And unlike on health care, Republican House members believe they have little cause for concern on Russia, with many echoing Trumps charge that the investigation is fake news.
Democrats have forgotten one of the edicts of one of the wise men of their party, Tip ONeill, who said all politics is local, said Dave Gilliard, a strategist for four of Californias targeted Republicans Reps. Jeff Denham, Mimi Walters, Issa and Ed Royce. Russia is the furthest thing from those voters minds If you went out on the street right now and asked 100 people what the most important issue right now is, I would be shocked if one said Russia.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul last month called the Russia investigation a "witch hunt, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has said Washington should stop chasing Russian ghosts around the closet.
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Even Rohrabacher, who would appear to be the most susceptible House member to any anti-Russia sentiment, dismisses any concern. After audio leaked of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy saying, supposedly in jest, that he suspected the Russian president of paying then-candidate Trump and Rohrabacher, the congressman said he posed for a photograph with McCarthy at a fundraiser last month both of them holding drinks known as Moscow mules.
I think that health care and tax reform will determine who controls the House of Representatives and who controls the Senate, Rohrabacher said. Republicans made a serious error when they started yakking away about Within 100 days were going to do this and that, which was totally unrealistic.
As for Russia, Rohrabacher said, This is not an issue that voters are concerned about not in my area, and certainly I dont think throughout the country.
Rohrabacher was heading to the beach for a meeting about shark detection technology, which he said has promising implications for swimmers along the coast.
Thats the type of thing that I think impresses voters more than telling people that the Russians are just as evil and threatening as they were during the Cold War, Rohrabacher said. Im confident about this election, and its not going to be about Russia.
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Democrats fear Russia probe blowback - Politico