“The Fundamental Dynamic Hasn’t Changed”: No, We Aren’t Getting Closer To Immigration Reform
Yesterday, congressional Republicans released a set of principles on immigration reform which are supposed to guide the writing of an actual plan. This has led some optimistic people to say that perhaps some kind of compromise between the two parties might be worked out, and reform could actually pass. I’m sorry to say that they’re going to be disappointed.
I might be proved wrong in the end. But I doubt it, because the fundamental incentives and the dynamics of the issue haven’t changed. You still have a national party that would like very much to pass reform, and individual members of that party in the House of Representatives who have nothing to gain, and much to lose, by signing on to any reform that would be acceptable to Democrats and thus have a chance of passing the Senate and being signed by the President. So it isn’t going to happen.
Now it’s true that in the wake of the government shutdown and the various debt ceiling crises, House conservatives have slightly less power to force the rest of the GOP to bend to their will. But only slightly. One thing hasn’t changed: the average House Republican still comes from a safe district where the only real threat to his job is a primary challenge from the right. He knows that his primary voters are people who watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio, where they hear things like Laura Ingraham telling them that jingoistic Mexicans are trying to take over America, which is why “your language [that’d be English] is gone,” while Rush Limbaugh rails at the Republican immigration principles as the wolf of “amnesty” in sheep’s clothing. Today’s Drudge Report featured a graphic of John Boehner in a sombrero, and it wasn’t a compliment. As one Southern Republican member of Congress told Buzzfeed, “If you go to town halls people say things like, ‘These people have different cultural customs than we do.’ And that’s code for race.”
Even in the slightly less bombastic reaches of the conservative media, forces are pushing against doing anything on immigration. “Bringing immigration to the floor insures [sic] a circular GOP firing squad, instead of a nicely lined-up one shooting together and in unison at Obamacare and other horrors of big government liberalism,” advises the Weekly Standard. “Since there really is no need to act this year on immigration, don’t. Don’t even try.” The National Review offers the same counsel, for the same reason. “The correct course is easy and eminently achievable: Do nothing…the last thing the party needs is a brutal intramural fight when it has been dealt a winning hand on Obamacare.”
And here’s the thing: they’re right. The best outcome for the Republican party as a whole is the passage of reform with their cooperation, which might at least begin the process of healing all the damage they’ve done to their image with Hispanic voters. But the worst outcome is a lengthy, angry debate about immigration in which there are lots of ugly comments made by their more conservative members, and which ends in reform failing, which would of course be blamed on the GOP’s antipathy toward Hispanics. And that is by far the most likely outcome.
In theory, John Boehner could bring to the floor a bill like the one the Senate passed last June, with increases in border enforcement and a long and difficult process for undocumented immigrants to eventually find their way to citizenship. But he’s already promised never to do so. Too many House Republicans—and not just the most ardent Tea Partiers—won’t accept a bill that includes any path to citizenship.Somebody obviously told Republicans that they are no longer allowed to use the phrase “path to citizenship,” but must now use the phrase “special path to citizenship” when saying they oppose it. It’s ridiculous, because of course any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is going to be special—it will be particular to them, and different from the path that a documented immigrant will take, in that it will be much more difficult and take a lot longer. But saying they oppose a “special” path to citizenship is a handy excuse for opposing any path to citizenship. (This may remind you of how conservatives used to say they opposed “special rights” for gay people, which meant things like the right not to get fired or kicked out of your home for being gay.) The statement Republicans put out yesterday is a bit vague, but it seems to imply some kind of second-class citizenship for undocumented immigrants, wherein after jumping through a whole bunch of hoops, they’d be given some kind of legal status, but they couldn’t become citizens.
And for lots of House Republicans, even that’s too much. So I’m pretty sure that before too long, Boehner and the rest of the House leadership are going to realize that there’s just no point in moving forward. If anyone asks, they’ll say they put out a proposal, but it couldn’t go anywhere because of dastardly Democrats who wanted to give every undocumented immigrant amnesty. But mostly they’ll just try to find something else to talk about.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, January 31, 2014
“Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way”: Will Republicans Raise The Minimum Wage? History Says Yes
Republicans may not have applauded when President Obama called for Congress to raise the minimum wage in his State of the Union address, but if history is any guide, it’s a good bet they will eventually do just that.
Since the minimum wage was established in 1938, every president, Republican or Democrat, except for Ronald Reagan has signed an increase into law. And in almost every instance, the bill came to the president’s desk with a big bipartisan vote from Congress. When Democrats crank up the pressure — and are willing to compromise with business interests — Republicans have routinely relented.
The most recent increase was in 2007, when nearly every Senate Republican and more than 60 percent of the House Republican Caucus voted in favor. And if you think the Republican Party was wildly more moderate back then, here are a few of the people that voted “Aye”: Michele Bachmann, Todd Akin, Bobby Jindal, and David Vitter.
What was different than today was the person sitting in the Oval Office: A chastened Republican giving his fellow conservatives political cover. But two other past increases played out against a similar political backdrop as today. In 1996 and 1949, congressional conservatives faced a Democratic president they loathed, yet were unwilling to face the voters and say they blocked a wage hike.
In the presidential election year of 1996, Speaker Newt Gingrich quietly signaled to his House caucus that they should let the increase go through after procedural stalling prompted the AFL-CIO to pound Republicans with television ads. Feeling the heat, 40 percent of House Republicans eventually crossed the aisle.
Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Bob Dole had been fighting the increase. But he resigned his Senate seat in June to jumpstart his campaign for president. Soon after, new Majority Leader Trent Lott, facing a Democratic threat to propose minimum wage amendments to every bill that reached the floor, backed down and allowed the bill to come to a vote. More than half of the caucus broke ranks.
In 1949, President Harry Truman just had been elected to his first full term in the most famous comeback in political history, thanks to a fiercely populist campaign that also reclaimed control of Congress to the Democrats. Yet it was not a liberal Congress. An informal alliance of conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans remained in force, and would eventually squelch most of Truman’s “Fair Deal” proposals. But the widely popular minimum wage was a rare exception.
Truman’s proposed increase was particularly ambitious, almost doubling the base hourly rate from 40 cents to 75 cents (from $3.81 to $7.14 in today’s dollars) and dramatically expanding the pool of workers covered by the law. As Truman historian Mark Byrnes recently recounted, conservatives did try to stop Truman, “but not by using today’s obstructionist tactics. They actually proposed an alternative: Limiting the increase to 65 cents an hour, indexing the wage to inflation, and eliminating the expansion of workers covered.” In the end, they struck a hard bargain. Truman got his wage increase, but as Byrnes notes, “in the short run [the compromise] actually reduced the number of workers covered by the law.”
In fact, all of the minimum wage increases mentioned above came with sops to the business lobby that eased Republican opposition. The 1996 and 2007 bills came with small business tax cuts and failed to increase the minimum wage for waiters who receive tips. That minimum remains stuck at $2.13.
Is this history relevant today? Or is the current Tea Party hatred of President Obama too much to overcome?
Consider the following:
The popularity of the issue is as strong as ever: In a Quinnipiac poll from earlier this month, 71 percent support an increase, including 52 percent of Republicans.
As I wrote here back in October, Speaker John Boehner has proven vulnerable to Democratic pressure tactics when Democrats are on extremely firm political ground — providing disaster relief, keeping the government open, and raising taxes on the wealthy to avert a tax hike on the middle class.
Finally, the Democratic proposal that Obama endorsed this week is a highly ambitious one — akin to Truman’s 1949 opening bid — which leaves much room for compromise.
The Harkin-Miller bill envisions a $10.10 hourly minimum wage, which would raise the floor to one of the highest levels in history after accounting for inflation. It would then index the minimum wage to inflation, meaning it would stay at that high level forever. And it jacks up the hourly minimum of tipped workers to about $7.
Poll numbers were not enough to break Boehner on an issue like gun control, because the gun lobby is politically potent and implacable. But history shows the business lobbies generally opposed to the minimum wage are far more willing to deal. And there is room to maneuver on the final rate, on indexing, and on tipped workers.
Where a final deal gets tricky is not how Democrats can scale back their opening bid, it’s what sweeteners can be concocted for the business lobby to attract Republican support. The tax break model of the 1996 and 2007 bills will be much harder to pull off under the tight budget caps both parties accepted and wrote into law this month.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Democrats have an abundance of will, and Republicans will need a way out. As history shows, they always take it.
By: Bill Scher, The Week, January 30, 2014
“All Right, There Are Two Republican Parties”: From The Comically Rote To The Grimm Series
Republican pundits have been arguing recently that immigration reform could splinter the party ahead of the 2014 elections. They shouldn’t be worrying about immigration. The Republicans’ response to President Obama’s State of the Union showed that the G.O.P. is actually two parties, or perhaps even more.
There were three organized responses — one official, one Tea Party, one libertarian — and one impromptu response involving the buffoonish behavior of a Congressman from Staten Island. (More about that in a minute.)
The Stepford Response: The official rebuttal, delivered by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, was comically rote and devoid of real content.
Ms. Rodgers started with the obligatory summation of her humble beginnings — a “nation where a girl who worked at the McDonald’s Drive Thru to help pay for college can be with you from the United States Capitol.” These tired stories — which Mr. Obama also tossed into his speech — are nearly as old as the republic.
She then went on to say: “The most important moments right now aren’t happening here. They’re not in the Oval Office or in the House chamber. They’re in your homes. Kissing your kids goodnight. Figuring out how to pay bills. Getting ready for tomorrow’s doctor visit. Waiting to hear from those you love serving in Afghanistan, or searching for that big job interview.”
Everyone with a heart values those moments. They happen to be exactly the same kind of moments that Mr. Obama evoked in his State of the Union. The difference is that the president offered a series of proposals about how to improve the lives of Americans and address the fundamental inequality in the country. Ms. Rodger offered none, just the usual misty-eyed evocations of the “real America” that are meant to imply that the rest of us do not belong.
The Storm the Castle Response: Representative Mike Lee of Utah delivered a spirited Tea Party rebuttal. He launched an attack on “ever-growing government” and celebrated the way that the original Boston patriots, who held the Original Tea Party, did not just stop there.
“It took them 14 long years to get from Boston to Philadelphia, where they created, with our Constitution, the kind of government they did want,” Mr. Lee said, glossing over what happened during those years — a full-blown, bloody revolution. I guess he’s not preaching that for now.
Mr. Lee talked a lot about inequality, which he blamed entirely on Washington, and mostly on Democrats, as if the kind of de-regulation that he presumably favors did not produce an out-of-control financial industry whose irresponsibility and excesses almost destroyed the economy.
The Non-Threatening Insurgent: Senator Rand Paul, the self-appointed leader of libertarians, delivered an extremely amiable speech.
He started, of course, with what seems to be his all-time favorite quote, Ronald Reagan saying that “government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem.” And he salted his speech with folksy sayings. We should not “reshuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic,” he said, although I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about. Listening to Mr. Paul is entertaining. “It’s not that government is inherently stupid,” he said, “although it’s a debatable point.”
But he has an odd sense of cause and effect. He said the recession, mass unemployment and the stock crash of 2008 were “caused by the Federal Reserve,” because it encouraged banks to give money to people who could not pay it back. But he left out the fact that it was the lifting of financial regulations on the banks that actually spurred them to do dangerous things, like offer risky loans. So when Mr. Paul talked about nixing other “burdensome, job killing regulations,” I got worried.
The most interesting thing about his comments was how much milder they were than last year, when he said that the true bipartisanship of Washington was the failure of both of the main political parties in pretty much every area. Is he running for president?
The Class Clown Response: Although not an official or even unofficial rebuttal, Rep. Michael Grimm of Staten Island’s comments after the State of the Union seem to say…something…about the Republican Party.
In a post-address interview, Michael Scotto of NY1 dared to stray from the topic at hand, asking Mr. Grimm about a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising.
Mr. Grimm grew so irritated that he threatened to throw Mr. Scott off the balcony, or alternatively to “break you in half. Like a boy.” He tossed in at least one profanity and informed Mr. Scotto that “you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough.” It’s not clear what for.
Mr. Grimm at first tried to explain his behavior by saying that it wasn’t fair to add questions about the criminal case to an interview on the State of the Union. After several hours of everyone pointing out how ridiculous that was, NY1 said Mr. Grimm finally apologized.
By: Andrew Rosenthal, Opinion Pages, The New York Times, January 29, 2014
State Of The GOP: Misguided And Obsessed
Three years ago, obsession took hold of Republicans in Congress.
In the third week of January 2011, John Boehner’s newly-elected House held its first-ever vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and go back to letting insurance companies do whatever they want. Fast forward to today — nearly 50 votes to repeal or undermine the law later — and it’s clear to the American people that Republicans in Congress aren’t on their side.
Pick an issue: Jobs. The economy. Education. Infrastructure. Minimum wage. Unemployment insurance. Immigration reform.
The list of failures, neglected issues and missed opportunities goes on and on — and shows without question that Republicans are on the side of special interests and the Tea Party, not the American people. No wonder poll after poll still shows House Republicans standing at record lows.
Boehner’s misguided agenda and one-note tenure have ignored what the American people want. In fact, independent, mainstream polls show that most Americans want to improve and fix the law, not repeal it. Americans know what repeal would cost them: giving the power back to insurance companies to discriminate, deny care, drop coverage, raise rates and drive hardworking Americans into bankruptcy.
On the Affordable Care Act and so many other issues that matter to the middle class, the message House Republicans have sent is clear: They are not on the side of hardworking American middle class families, and instead will do everything in their power to protect those who need help the least: the Washington special interests.
While House Republicans have obsessively voted to turn our health care system back over to insurance companies, that is far from the only damage they have inflicted on the people of this country. Their disastrous government shutdown — which they launched to oppose the Affordable Care Act — cost our economy $24 billion. They won’t extend unemployment insurance for struggling Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who are looking for work — all while they make sure that Big Oil gets its $40 billion in subsidies. They refuse to raise the minimum wage, while seeking maximum tax cuts for the rich. They have yet to pass anything that remotely resembles a jobs bill.
Those wrong priorities will come back to haunt them in November.
A few Republicans are making the first motions to run away from this unpopular approach and to deny their repeal-only agenda. They’re hoping that voters will think that they’ve woken up and found some common sense — but voters won’t forget nearly 50 votes, and they won’t forgive them for turning their backs on hardworking people.
Republicans’ flawed priorities are hurting real families in this country. With every repeal vote, John Boehner might get a kick out of conservative news headlines and the talk radio echo chamber, but what regular Americans see is a politician who cares more about wealthy insurance company contributors than helping their families.
Voters will have a choice this fall between Republicans’ wrong priorities, and problem-solving Democrats who have dedicated their lives to helping middle class families get ahead. I believe that choice will be clear.
By: Rep Steve Israel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, CNN Opinion, January 28, 2014
“GOP’s Hot New Craze”: Why Everyone Wants To Give A State Of The Union Response This Year
Are you ready for the television event of the year? That’s right: It’s almost time for the annual State of the Union address and its rapidly multiplying responses. Tomorrow, following the president’s address, Americans will also (if they choose to) hear from three separate elected Republicans. Because if there’s anything Americans love more than lengthy speeches from politicians, it’s three successive lengthy speeches from politicians. Maybe this year my pitch for C-SPAN Redzone will finally catch on?
Last year, the official Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address was delivered by a famously parched Sen. Marco Rubio. Then there was another response, from Sen. Rand Paul, representing the Tea Party. This year, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers will deliver the official Republican response, followed by a Tea Party response from Sen. Mike Lee. And then Rand Paul will also deliver a response, representing … himself.
When Michele Bachmann delivered her “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union in 2011, it seemed unlikely to become a tradition. But the next year, presidential candidate and pizza magnate Herman Cain delivered his own Tea Party response. Then came Paul, who apparently enjoyed it so much that he decided to deliver his own totally unaffiliated response speech Tuesday, to be posted on YouTube and sent out directly to his followers and fans via his email list.
Traditionally, the official opposition party response to the State of the Union was an opportunity to take advantage of free airtime to deliver the party’s official platform and message to a captive national audience (back when the speech was the only thing on TV). The response was sometimes used to showcase a party’s rising stars, but it was also common to have it delivered by recognized and respected senior members of Congress.
But the official response is a thankless, largely pointless assignment. The responder doesn’t have the benefit of the president’s large audience and impressive backdrop, they have little advance knowledge of what they are responding to, and, let’s be real, no one’s paying attention. Official responses have done next to nothing for opposition parties. (Not that the track record of State of the Union addresses is so hot either. Let’s just go back to making it a brief letter delivered whenever a president feels like it, and save all the political bloggers the trouble of liveblogging it.)
But what if the responder wasn’t hemmed in by the requirement that they represent their entire party, and appeal to as broad an audience as possible? What if the response could be used purely for naked self-promotion, and narrowcast solely to the true believers? Then the response morphs from a mostly thankless burden to a canny campaigning and fundraising opportunity.
Rand Paul’s response won’t be on the networks, because Rand Paul’s audience isn’t everyone, and his intention isn’t necessarily to persuade the median voter. He will sit for cable news interviews after the speech, and hit up the Sunday show circuit a few days later, because he’s still campaigning for 2016 and needs as much free media as possible, but a YouTube response sent directly to people who already support Paul is mainly about energizing and expanding his list.
And that’s sort of the problem the Republican Party faces right now: For Paul, there’s not really any reason not to distract from the “official” party response with a nakedly self-serving bit of early campaigning. There’s nothing stopping whomever wants to declare themselves “the Tea Party” from delivering a response too, because part of identifying with the Tea Party is rejecting the “Washington” leadership of the GOP. (The percentage of Americans identifying as “independents” is at a 25-year high, and many of those “independents” are partisan Republicans rejecting the label for various reasons.) It’s good for building up your list, and a good list is what makes a successful modern politician.
Giving an unsanctioned State of the Union response isn’t quite the same level of leadership-defiance as, say, launching an unsanctioned, time-wasting stunt “filibuster” (speaking of which, why, exactly, isn’t Ted Cruz also responding to the State of the Union?), but the responses are multiplying for the same reason phony talking filibusters suddenly caught on among Senate Republicans last year: because the GOP is effectively leaderless and acting like a rebel insurgent is the only way to win over grass-roots conservative voters.
In other words, expect even more responses in 2015.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, January 27, 2014
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