Hot Potato

On Monday, we were again reminded of the human side of immigration reform. Oh, and we were again reminded of the G-O-TEA spin campaign to excuse its own drive to kill comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). House Republicans have taken a bill that easily passed the Senate 68-32!!!)... And turned it into some frightening hot potato.

Why is this? Why can't House Republicans even allow a floor vote on CIR? What do they fear?

Actually, it's more a matter of who they fear. Notice something below?

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No really, this is what's behind the G-O-TEA obstruction on CIR. They want to create the illusion of "doing something", but they don’t want to pass something their "TEA" fueled base will object to.

This is why House Republicans (including Nevada's own Joe Heck & Mark Amodei) voted to deport DREAMers last month. Sure, House G-O-TEA "leaders" now say they kind-of-sort-of-somewhat-maybe are down with the DREAM Act. Where were they when their caucus (including Eric Cantor [R-Virginia] himself!) voted to deport DREAMers?

As we've discussed before, House Republicans want to have it both ways. They want to give the impression of "doing something" while only doing what the "tea party" demands, regardless of overall public opinion and/or actual sound public policy. We're seeing this locally from Joe Heck, and this is being repeated in Republican held Congressional Districts across the nation.

Univision's Jorge Ramos is one of the top journalists in Latin@ media today. And he has a warning for Congressional Republicans hoping to smother CIR to death in the House. (The English translation below is courtesy of Daily Kos.)

It's disturbing and disappointing that [House Speaker John] Boehner [R-Ohio], in a statement, called the Senate's immigration bill "a mistake" and "hurried". He seems to be disconnected from what the American majority wants, according to the polls, after almost three decades of delay. Does Boehner really want to be the new villain of the Hispanic community, replacing Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Does he really want to be part of the sad anti-immigrant contingent including Pete Wilson, Tom Tancredo, Jan Brewer and Ted Cruz? We'll see.

Republicans have an opportunity in 2016 to share credit with Democrats on immigration reform, leaving behind years of ill-will. Sixteen million Latino voters will decide that election.

But if after everything Republicans side with the most extremist anti-immigrants, they'll lose the White House in 2016 and will have to wait many years to earn the forgiveness of Latinos. Like the wise Mexican adage says, fair warning leaves no room for surprises.

More immediately, Rep. Joe Heck (R-??!!) will have to explain his many stances on CIR in the coming months. And beyond that, Nevada Republicans will have to explain why some of their own have been going all in to undermine reform. I wonder what Senator Dean Heller (R-46%) has to say about this.


Just keep in mind that Republicans made CIR into a political hot potato among their own. So they onoy have themselves to blame when they get burned.