“Cantor Running Scared”: Facing A Hard-Right Challenger, He Wants No Part Of Immigration Reform
In the latest round of Republican excuses for inaction on immigration reform, there’s a new culprit: Eric Cantor’s actually struggling in his re-election primary. Here’s how Juan Williams puts it at The Hill:
When Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) was recently asked why he has failed to get an immigration bill to the floor, he reacted by saying “Me?” Boehner appeared to be passing the buck to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), who sets the schedule for floor votes….
At the moment, Cantor wants no part of anything that can be labeled “amnesty.” He started backtracking on support for reform during his fight to win Tuesday’s GOP primary in his congressional district. Cantor is facing a hard-right challenger, Dave Brat, who opposes any citizenship or legal status for illegal immigrants as “amnesty.”
Some of you may recall that last month Cantor was humiliated at his own 7th district GOP convention when he was booed lustily by many delegates just before his hand-picked candidate for district chairman was rejected. Tomorrow he faces conservative economics professor Dave Brat at the polls, and though Cantor is heavily favored, it’s not a slam dunk. On Friday a poll commissioned by the Daily Caller showed the incumbent well below 50% in committed supporters, and only leading 52-39 with leaners added in. The poll didn’t show immigration as a red-hot issue, but did show that about a third of GOP voters in Cantor’s district have really hard-core, round-em-all-up views about undocumented workers:
Only 9 percent of respondents in the poll said immigration was their top-most issue. Cantor’s team has flooded mailboxes with flyers that says he has blocked the Senate’s June 2013 rewrite of immigration laws, and that he opposes amnesty for illegals.
The poll shows that Cantor’s primary voters strongly oppose illegal immigration. Sixty-four percent said government should focus on blocking illegal immigration, while only 26 percent said the focus should be to “deal with the immigrants who are currently in the U.S. illegally.”
Only 23 percent said “there needs to be a humane way for immigrants to come out of the shadows and gain legal status.” In contrast, 33 percent support deporting “every immigrant who is in the U.S. illegally.” Forty-four percent want “something in between” legalization and complete deportation, said the poll.
So if the primary explains Cantor’s lassitude towards action on immigration in the House, will he spring back to life after the votes are in tomorrow (assuming, of course, that he wins)? I dunno. Nothing would give more impetus to a challenge to Cantor next cycle than that sort of screw-you gesture to the conservatives of his district. And Cantor also has to pay attention to keeping a majority of House Republicans in his camp for his presumed ascension to the top House job when John Boehner hangs it up. With each day the odds of any action on immigration reform erodes a bit more. What’s mainly interesting at the moment is when and how House GOP leaders officially throw in the towel.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, June 9, 2014
“Why Is This Issue Going Nowhere?”: How Eric Cantor’s Killing Immigration Reform
“Gentlemen, start your engines.” That message, played repeatedly in a commercial beamed on the Jumbotron at this year’s Indianapolis 500, had nothing to do with race cars. A coalition of faith, business, and law enforcement leaders used the iconic event to launch their call for House Republicans to get moving on immigration reform.
“It’s time for effective, common-sense, and accountable solutions that respect and enhance the rule of law,” says Mark Curran, a Lake County, Illinois sheriff in the commercial.
Unfortunately, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor can’t shift gears. The Virginia Republican won’t allow the most incremental of immigration bills, known as the ENLIST Act, to go forward.
This bill would let immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to enlist in the military. If they serve and are honorably discharged, they would then be eligible for a green card, which would put them on a path to citizenship.
These are young people who didn’t choose to come here. Their parents brought them. An opportunity to serve in the military would give them a chance to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. In the long run, the ENLIST Act would allow these folks to become full, productive members of society.
Naturally, the ENLIST Act has a broad support base. Republican Jeff Denham of California introduced the measure, which 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans co-sponsored.
Conservative commentator Linda Chavez called the ENLIST Act “the right — and principled — thing to do,” in her syndicated column.
When asked about the ENLIST Act, Cantor suggested that he supported it. “If you’ve got a kid that was brought here by their parents — unbeknownst to the child — and that they’ve grown up in this country and not known any other, and they want to serve in our military, they ought to be allowed to do that and then have the ability to become a citizen after that kind of service,” he told Politico.
But actions speak louder than words. Cantor blocked the ENLIST Act from being included in a military authorization bill, and it doesn’t look likely that it will come up for a vote anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the public continues to support an overhaul of our broken immigration system. Even Fox News pollsters find that most Americans support reform, including majorities of Republican voters. In fact, a May poll conducted by conservative advocacy groups found that Tea Party Republican voters favor immigration reform. The Tea Party Express and Americans for Prosperity report that over 70 percent of Tea Party-aligned voters want Congress to pass immigration legislation this year.
It seems like everyone is on board. Why is this issue going nowhere?
For one thing, Cantor isn’t willing to lead on immigration. If he won’t permit a vote on something as narrowly targeted as the ENLIST Act, it’s doubtful that House Republicans will tackle a more comprehensive approach.
That’s a loss for our military, which will lose out on a group of qualified, dedicated recruits. And it’s a loss for the Republican Party, which is destined to win scant numbers of Latino voters in 2016. More importantly, our country as a whole will suffer if our broken immigration system continues to hobble along as is.
Sure, illegal immigration is contentious. Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican, has compared offering undocumented veterans citizenship to “handing out candy at a parade.” But one study showed that non-citizen enlistees were “far more likely to complete their enlistment obligations successfully than their U.S.-born counterparts.”
King himself avoided serving in Vietnam in the 1960s through multiple deferments. How ironic that he and his colleagues are now squashing the military service dreams of others.
Of course, not all undocumented immigrants want or are able to serve in the armed forces. They still deserve a chance to get right with the law, pay fines and back taxes, and become citizens.
But young immigrants who are willing to put their lives on the line for our country should be allowed to do so. It’s time to pass the ENLIST Act, then move ahead with immigration reform.
By: Paul A. Reyes, The National Memo, June 6, 2014
“Feeling A Bit Of Anxiety”: Cantor’s Cause For Concern In The Commonwealth
The idea that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would worry at all about his re-election seems hard to believe. The conservative Republican has fared quite well in all of his campaigns; he’s already quite powerful by Capitol Hill standards; and in the not-too-distant future, Cantor might even be well positioned to be Speaker of the House.
And yet, the Majority Leader appears to be feeling quite a bit of anxiety about his future.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is boasting in a new campaign mailer of shutting down a plan to give “amnesty” to “illegal aliens,” a strongly worded statement from a Republican leader who’s spoken favorably about acting on immigration.
The flier sent by his re-election campaign comes as Cantor is under pressure ahead of his June 10 GOP primary in Virginia – and as the narrow window for action on immigration legislation in the House is closing fast. Cantor’s flier underscores how vexing the issue is for the GOP.
In the larger context, it’s not helpful for Republicans when the Majority Leader brags about killing a bill that gives “amnesty” to “illegal aliens,” while his party tries to maintain a half-hearted pretense that blames President Obama for the demise of immigration reform.
But at this point, Cantor doesn’t appear to care too much about the larger context or message coherence. He’s worried about losing – the rest can be worked out later.
In fact, the degree of Cantor’s anxiety is pretty remarkable. The Majority Leader is up against David Brat, a conservative economist at Randolph-Macon College, who’s eagerly telling primary voters that Cantor isn’t right-wing enough. What was once seen as token opposition, however, has clearly gotten the incumbent’s attention.
Cantor was concerned enough last month to launch a television attack ad, which was followed by Cantor’s anti-immigrant mailing, which culminated in yet another television attack ad that the congressman’s campaign unveiled yesterday.
These are not the actions of a confident incumbent.
As best as I can tell, there are no publicly available polls out of this Virginia district (though it’s safe to say Cantor has invested in some surveys of his own). With that in mind, it’s hard to say with any confidence whether the Majority Leader is overreacting to a pesky annoyance or a credible challenger.
But Jenna Portnoy and Robert Costa reported recently that it’s probably the former, not the latter.
Most Republicans continue to believe Cantor is safe; he won a primary challenge two years ago with nearly 80 percent of the vote. But the prospect of a competitive and bruising challenge to the second-ranking Republican in Congress is embarrassing to Cantor – and is rattling GOP leaders at a time when the party is trying to unify its divided ranks.
We’ll know soon enough just how serious the threat is – the primary is in 13 days – but as the election draws closer, let’s not forget that Cantor was booed and heckled by Republican activists in his own district just two weeks ago.
No wonder he seems so nervous.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 28, 2014
“A Feckless Coward”: Boehner’s Wimpiness Exposed, As Democrats Call His Bluff
I’ve been making the case that when it comes to immigration reform, John Boehner is a feckless coward who, caught between two bad political choices, is content to defer action indefinitely while engaging in empty excuse-making to save face. Thankfully, I don’t have to make that case anymore. John Boehner is making it for me.
For months now, Boehner has been arguing that the biggest obstacle to passing immigration reform in the House is that the Republicans just can’t trust President Obama to actually enforce the law when it comes to border security and deportations. This is a ridiculous standard on its face – the House GOP didn’t trust George W. Bush on enforcement, so it’s doubtful that any president could meet their maximalist expectations. And as my colleague Jim Newell points out, Boehner is essentially arguing against the passage of any legislation on any issue. If you can’t trust the president, why bother?
Faced with Boehner’s obvious bluffing on the trust issue, the Democrats called him out. Yesterday, Harry Reid offered Boehner a way around his crippling mistrust of the president: pass comprehensive reform legislation now, but tweak the bill so that it takes effect in 2017, after Obama has left office. “If Republicans don’t trust President Obama, let’s give them a chance to implement the bill under President Rand Paul or President Theodore Cruz,” Reid said.
Problem solved, right? Hah… no. Boehner’s office released the following statement shooting down the idea: “Such a scenario would eliminate any incentive for the administration to act on border security or enforce the law for the remainder of President Obama’s term.”
So Republicans can’t implement immigration reform now because Obama won’t enforce the law. But they also can’t wait to implement immigration reform because Obama needs incentives to enforce the law? Boehner has put himself in the position of arguing that he can’t act because Obama needs to be incentivized to do something he won’t do anyway.
Boehner is just making up reasons for why he can’t act on his own stated convictions and get immigration reform passed. It has nothing to do with President Obama and everything to do with Boehner not wanting to jeopardize his own grasp on power and his party’s chances to make gains in the midterms.
Brian Beutler points out that the threat of executive action to limit deportations further reduces the chances of reform passing, since it’ll agitate the hardline reform opponents in the House and make Boehner even more reluctant to act (if that’s even possible). Any move from the White House will be seized upon by Boehner and the Republicans as an out-of-control imperial president circumventing the will of Congress, and they’re far more eager to make that argument to voters heading into the midterms than to arrive at a coherent policy outcome.
That’s the reason Boehner is contorting himself into logical inconsistencies on immigration. Acting to pass legislation threatens to damage him politically. Inaction puts the spotlight on President Obama. And for all of Boehner’s talk about his commitment to immigration reform, he’s more invested in saving his own skin.
By: Simon Maloy, Salon, May 23, 2014
“Ultimately Responsible For Republican Inaction”: Whether He Likes It Or Not, Boehner Controls Immigration Bill’s Fate
For months, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tried to blame President Obama for House Republicans’ refusal to consider immigration reform: GOP lawmakers don’t trust the White House, the argument went, so the administration’s responsible for Republican intransigence. A few weeks ago, however, Boehner accidentally told the truth: House Republicans, afraid of hard work and tough choices, are ultimately responsible for inaction on the issue.
So which is it? As a matter of substance, the Speaker’s accidental honesty gave away the game, but as a matter of politics, it’s awkward when the House Republican leader blames his own members for a colossal failure – so now Boehner seems to be pushing both arguments simultaneously.
The Ohio Republican, speaking at a luncheon sponsored by several San Antonio business groups, acknowledged that there are some in his conference who do not want to take on the issue, but he was measured in speaking about his colleagues’ resistance.
“There are some members of our party who just do not want to deal with this. It’s no secret,” he said. “I do believe the vast majority of our members do want to deal with this, they want to deal with it openly, honestly and fairly.”
Boehner then added, “I put the ball back in the president’s court. He’s going to have to do something to demonstrate his trustworthiness.”
There are hints of good news here for reform proponents, but for the most part, the Speaker’s position is simply incoherent. If the “vast majority” of House Republicans want to tackle immigration reform, Boehner and his leadership team can … wait for it … tackle immigration reform. There’s nothing stopping them – they’re the House majority; they can do as they please; the Senate has already acted; and the White House is eager to sign something into law.
As for President Obama demonstrating his “trustworthiness,” the administration has already shown its commitment on this issue by increasing deportations and boosting border security to heights without modern precedent. What’s more, leading Democratic lawmakers have offered to delay implementation of the law until 2017, at which time there will be a new president.
Boehner has never been a policy guy, per se, but it’s implausible to think the Speaker of the House isn’t aware of these basic details. It’s what makes his odd rhetoric somewhat baffling – Boehner says Republicans are and aren’t interested in reform, while the president is and isn’t to blame for GOP intransigence.
The Speaker added, in reference to immigration reform in general, “This is not about politics, not about elections. It’s about doing the right thing for the American people. It’s about doing the right thing for the country. Period.”
That’s a perfectly nice sentiment, though it naturally leads one to wonder when, exactly, Boehner might stop talking about the issue and might start governing.
In the meantime, some of the Speaker’s allies are offering his party some not-so-subtle advice. Benjy Sarlin noted yesterday:
Republican-leaning immigration supporters, which include a variety of business leaders and trade associations, have been lobbying Republicans for a year to pass a reform bill. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue warned Republicans on Monday that failure to pass a bill this year would be fatal to the party’s presidential hopes given the rising power of Hispanic and Asian voters who are largely opposed to the GOP’s current immigration stance.
“If the Republicans don’t do it, they shouldn’t bother to run a candidate in 2016,” he said in a panel discussion. “I mean, think about that. Think about who the voters are.”
To borrow a metaphor, the ball is in Boehner’s court.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 13, 2014
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