Ralph Reed can envision a path to a dramatic immigration reform law, but the head of the Duluth-based Faith & Freedom Coalition acknowledges the uncertainty ahead with doubt that borders on pessimism. It’s the latest indication that the fresh post-election political winds in favor of a new immigration law might not be enough to overcome the obstacles that have thwarted such efforts for a quarter century.
Tuesday’s 84-15 vote in the United States Senate to begin debate on its bill had all the solidity of cotton candy. Many of the 30 Republicans in favor — including Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson — threatened to bail on the final vote without serious changes to the bill, which was carefully negotiated by the bipartisan Gang of Eight. But Democrats, starting with Thursday’s border security amendment offered by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, have the votes to block any significant change they don’t like.
This pattern troubles Reed, who has put his neck out in favor of an immigration overhaul unpopular with many conservatives. On Thursday he dispatched 500 Faith & Freedom members to Capitol Hill to lobby their legislators on the group’s agenda.
The Senate immigration bill does not yet meet Reed’s criteria, such as giving a swift legal status to immigrants who overstayed their visas but not to those who crossed the border illegally. The latter group, in Reed’s view, should have to apply for work visas and should have no guaranteed path to citizenship.
“We think our greatest hope – and maybe now our only and diminishing hope – is a strong House bill that can then go to conference committee and then prevail on some of these provisions,” said Reed, the former Georgia GOP chair and head of the national Christian Coalition.
The House is tricky territory. While many national Republicans see the Latino electorate as the missing ingredient to presidential campaign success — and GOP support of immigration reform a necessary step to wooing them — most House members’ re-election fears come only from a primary challenger to their right. And many tea party leaders in Georgia and elsewhere are dead set against granting any status or future citizenship to those here illegally.
Reed proposed this hurdle could be cleared by passing a bill in stages. Even Georgia Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston — the Senate hopefuls currently elbowing each other for room in the right wing ahead of next year’s primary — could back a border security bill and a bill that puts nuclear families of immigrants to the front of the visa line, Reed said. Then Democrats could carry the part that grants legal status and a path to citizenship.
The piecemeal bills would go to a conference committee with a big Senate bill, presuming it finds the 60 votes to pass.
“That’s going to be the really hard vote because you don’t know what you’re going to get out of conference,” Reed said.
He had a star-studded lineup from the Senate Republican class of 2010 to speak to his social conservative charges on Thursday: Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and headliner Marco Rubio of Florida.
Only Rubio discussed immigration, fitting for the highest profile Republican backer of the effort in Congress. Like Reed, Rubio casts the issue in moral terms.
“The essence of our immigration policy is compassion,” Rubio said. “It’s the idea that knowing that we believe that people from all walks of life can succeed if given the opportunity, we actually want that. We actually want to be the place that they succeed.”
The lines earned a hearty round of applause. Whether more lawmakers will find religion on the issue is another question.
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