Now that the Senate has passed the bipartisan bill in the Senate, we await to see what happens in the House. Will the House take up the Senate Bill and pass it or produce its own bill that includes a core piece of senate Legislation, a path to the citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country.
It appears that the House will look at a narrower bill that does not provide path to citizenship and choose to legislate series of standalone bills that deal with strong border security, an agricultural, guest worker plan, fortified employment eligibly verification system and to expand immigration for science, technology, engineering and mathematic experts. “The House is not going to be log rolled by the Senate” a key law maker said, “We have a minority of the minority in the Senate voting for this bill,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, referring to the Republican Senators who back the Senate measure. “That’s not going to put a lot of pressure on the majority of the majority in the House.”
Two senior House Republican leadership aides were more blunt when speaking privately: Speaker John A. Boehner has no intention of angering conservative voters and jeopardizing the House Republican majority in 2014, in the interest of courting Hispanic voters on behalf of a 2016 Republican presidential nominee, who does not yet exist.
If anything, the politics of a gerrymandered House, where Republican lawmakers have much more to fear politically from the right than from the left, could push many Republicans to oppose a conservative alternative to the Senate’s plan.
Even advocates of a comprehensive immigration bill that includes a pathway to legalization for unauthorized immigrants now in the country, say that Senate passage would not change House sentiment quickly.
“Can we pass a House bill? It’s a very open question,” said Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a leading voice among a shrinking group of moderate Republicans. For Republicans, the stakes are high and the crosscurrents are strong. Advocates of the Senate bill say the future of the national Republican Party could rest on how this issue plays out. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who helped write the measure, said that “the passion level” among Hispanic voters on the immigration issue “is as high as on any issue I’ve observed.”
“If we can’t grow our numbers, particularly among Hispanics, it’s pretty hard to win the White House in 2016,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, another of the bill’s authors. “Don’t get me wrong. Conservatism sells, and after eight years of Obama, people will be looking around for someone new. But it’s hard to sell your economic agenda, if they think you’re going to deport their grandmother.”
On the other hand, a vote for legislation like the Senate bill could hold real peril for House Republicans, whose solidly Republican districts reward politicians, who take the most conservative positions on issues. A new poll by National Journal found that nearly half of Republican voters, 49 percent, said a lawmaker who backs legislation offering a pathway to citizenship, would lose their support. Thirty percent said it would make no difference. Only 15 percent said such a vote would make them more likely to back their incumbent.
“I think most members look at this with a great deal of trepidation,” Mr. Cole said.
What the House’s methodical approach yields, may determine the ultimate fate of immigration legislation in the 113th Congress? If the House can pass its own immigration bill, lawmakers will have a counteroffer to bring to the voters next year – even if the House and Senate bills cannot be reconciled into a final package for President Obama to sign.
The historic event recently was the Senate’s approval of their immigration reform bill S. 744. In a vote of 68-32, the Senate demonstrated remarkable bipartisan commitment t