Immigration reform still has a pulse
If you're a glass-half-full supporter of immigration reform, you've seen a few developments over the past week suggesting that maybe -- just maybe -- there's still a chance to pass some sort reform this year. At an event in his congressional district in Ohio last week, House Speaker John Boehner mocked his GOP colleagues for being afraid on immigration reform. "Here's the attitude. Ohhhh. Don't make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard," he said, per the Cincinnati Enquirer. That remark led some observers to speculate that either Boehner still wants to get immigration reform done, or that he has no intention of remaining speaker (or in Congress) after this year. Next, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, last week expressed hope for an immigration bill by August. And then yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who helped write the Gang of Eight legislation that passed the Senate last year, optimistically declared yesterday that immigration reform is going to pass by June or July. "I believe, hopefully June or July, we will have an immigration bill it may not be exactly the Senate bill on the floor of the House. They will pass it. We will come to an agreement. They will put that bill on the president's desk for President Obama to sign into law," Schumer said, per the New York Daily News. "The Republican Party knows if it continues to be seen as anti-immigrant, they're going to lose election after election.
Glass half full vs. glass half empty
But if you're a glass-half-empty person, you also realize that immigration reform's prospects in the House aren't better than they were last month, or the month before that, or the month before that. For starters, more than 60% of House GOP members represent congressional districts where Latinos make up less than 10% of the population (so there is more of an incentive to oppose reform than champion it). Second, were already knee-deep in an election season, and the GOP sees the issue as something that divides the party rather than unites it. And third, Republicans dont trust President Obama to implement the border-enforcement mechanisms (even if the law is written where implementation wouldn't occur until AFTER his presidency). The common thread here: The resistance to passing immigration reform is coming exclusively from Republicans. And immigration-reform advocates say theres a solution for GOPers who say they want to pass something: put up or shut up. Theres a simple way House Republicans can prove that they are serious about delivering on immigration in the interim. The first step is to actually introduce the legislation they are touting and to actually hold votes on reform bills, says Frank Sharry of the pro-reform group Americas Voice.
The deportation wildcard
Yet theres one wildcard in this immigration debate: the possibility that President Obama -- under pressure from supporters -- uses executive action to scale back the deportations coming from his administration. That was something the president said he was weighing during hisnews conference two weeks ago. The only way to truly fix [the immigration system] is through congressional action. We have already tried to take as many administrative steps as we could. Were going to review it one more time to see if theres more that we can do to make it more consistent with common sense and more consistent with I think the attitudes of the American people, which is we shouldnt be in the business necessarily of tearing families apart who otherwise are law-abiding. Republicans have said that such a move would eliminate the possibility of Obama getting anything done on immigration in his last two years in office (read: theyre dangling the possibility that come 2015, with perhaps a GOP majority in the Senate, they would be willing to play ball). But Democrats counter that come 2015, the GOP will be in the midst of presidential primary season, and the candidates would have every incentive to blast any bill as amnesty. According to these Democrats, if a bill doesnt get done this year, its not happening until 2017 -- or beyond.
WaPo/ABC poll has Obamas approval at 41%
A new Washington Post/ABC poll presents some unwelcome news for the Obama White House after some relatively favorable press over the last few weeks: The presidents job approval is at 41% (down from 46% back in March), and opinions about the health-care law have gotten more negative (44% support it, 48% oppose it, which is a decline from Marchs 49% support, 48% oppose). So thats a plug to announce that our new NBC/WSJ poll is coming out first thingtomorrow morning. Will it show something similar? Or something different? And what is the publics appetite for another Bush or Clinton presidency? Tune in tomorrow for the results.
It all comes down to turnout
In case you missed it over the weekend, be sure to read Sasha Issenbergs piece in the New Republic breaking down the Democrats true disadvantage this midterm season: turnout. Today the Republican coalition is stacked with the electorates most habitual poll-goersor Reflex voters, as we will call them. The Democratic Party claims the lions share of drop-off voters, or Unreliables. Yet Issenberg notes how Democrats are trying to address their disadvantage. The strategists engineering the partys campaigns now have at their disposal databases containing the names of every Unreliable voter in the country, as well as guidance on where, how, and when they can be reached... Volunteers who live near those passive sympathizers can be dispatched; when in-person contact is unfeasible, carefully crafted letters can be sent instead. But all of these increasingly powerful tools also require money and manpower. This is why its not intensity scores on polls but rather the bustle of field offices and the sums on fund-raising reports that are the best guide to the Democrats midterm prospects.
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Immigration Reform Still Has a Pulse