It is starting to look as if the hard-line “illegal is illegal, dang it, they’re felons!” line in the sand drawn by the House GOP is starting to shift a bit. Yesterday, they signalled a willingness to drop language tying illegal immigration to felony-level penalties, even as they deflected blame onto the Democrats (CNN):
Frist and Hastert also criticized House Democrats, who, they said, opposed efforts by Republicans to strip the provision from the bill before it passed.
But what were they really doing in the House? Was their proposal grounded in reality? According to the Washington Post, the answer is no. Instead, they were merely making a statement to appease their “base”:
“It was an ugly bill in most respects, the felony stuff, the wall and no amendments,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who tried to add a guest-worker provision but was not allowed a vote. “The leadership saw this more as a statement than a policy, but I think in the end we would have been better off had we been more deliberative.”
This sounds like the old “We were just kidding” routine to me. Evidently, they radically underestimated the scale of the reaction.
The Democrats saw the writing on the wall much faster, and called the Republican bluff by publicly holding their feet to the fire. The result seems to be that the GOP lost face, lost support, and internal credibility:
In the wake of this week’s massive demonstrations, many House Republicans are worried that a tough anti-illegal-immigration bill they thought would please their political base has earned them little benefit while becoming a lightning rod for the fast-growing national movement for immigrant rights.
Given the nearly even voter split in the US, it seems obvious that both parties are eyeing the potential weight immigrants could give to their side of the scales. For the Republicans, this isn’t likely to play out well with the less flexible. Dan Riehl at Riehl World View epitomizes the GOP damage:
I hope there’s a leader somewhere in that crumbling party, which today appears to be a shadow of itself, full of political whores intent on abandoning principle so as to pimp themselves for votes. If Republicans remain on this co-dependent Democrat path they are on, look for significant third party challenges from the Right. From what I am seeing today, I would strongly consider voting for one now.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will go for the jugular as they press to widen the gap. TalkLeft describes that political strategy well:
The demonstrations are working. We need to keep them going until we get an immigration reform bill that protects the undocumented among us, allows a path to citizenship that doesn’t require leaving the country and unreasonable hurdles, includes protections and benefits for workers and respect for families, civil rights and due process.
There appears to be rather a lot of ground to cover in the middle to reach compromise, don’t you think?
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Update: Captain Ed comes in with a much calmer view from the right.
I always thought this was a political gambit by the right that may have backfired. I still dont think a bill will get passed before November.
My instincts tell me that even though the short term wedge issue may have failed, this may also be a part of a larger triangulation strategy to pull black votes away from the Democratic party. Whether that compensates for the loss in the Hispanic vote remains to be seen – I doubt it since the Hispanics are the fastest growing minority.
In any case, this was a pretty vile, divisive ploy by the right, and a lot of similar divisive and downright condescending stuff came from the left as well. The suggestion that Mexicans will do work that no American will do is an insult to both Mexicans and Americans – not to mention that it is a tacit ok to create an economic underclass in the United States.
pox on both houses on this one.
Mash – I couldn’t agree more about the deliberate divisiveness. Evidently, the gap between the left and right just wasn’t wide enough yet.
OTOH, I’m heartened by how many people, who recently have been blazing pretty hard from the wings, seem to see this as perhaps a road back toward intelligent discussion.
Not sure about the triangulation theory, though. Have to put more thought into that one…
One of the things I have heard in various (mostly conservative-leaning) media is that, originally, the intent was to make “illegal immigration” a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of 6 months in prison. However, an amendment was added to make it a felony offense, and this amendment was overwhelmingly passed – by Democrats (something like 190 of them voted for it)! If this is true, then the whole issue may be nothing more than an election-year setup.
As far as the “assisting illegal immigrants is a felony” thing goes — several explanations have been made to the effect that this is aimed specifically at those who are transporting (smuggling) them into the USA, and that there is no intent to use it against churches and other groups providing humanitarian assistance. I say, if this is true then they can simply add the appropriate language into the bill, and eliminate the possibility of mis-interpretation.
~EdT.
EdT – I’ve read the Democrats as more passive-aggressive on this, actually. In the House, it seems that the Republicans attempted to change or modify (or strip out?) the felony aspects, but Democrats wouldn’t allow it. (The Washington Post article, quoted above, has some details).
Between this, though, and the article posted today at Polimom, Too, it becomes ever-more obvious that there’s some strange maneuvering going on…