Dems try to breathe new life into Immigration Reform (and set a Tea Party trap)

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

As immigration politics goes, this is as exciting as it’s gotten in a long time.

Most of us have been lighting candles at a death vigil, checking for a pulse every now and then, all but convinced that comprehensive immigration reform was lifeless.

But the Democrats in the U.S.House of Representatives haven’t given up … yet. The leadership knows they have math on their side. They know they’ve got enough votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform today, if it came to a vote; at least twelve moderate Republican’s willing to vote for it, another eighteen or so probable. The problem is making the vote happen.

GOP politics makes that vote all but impossible – Speaker John Boehner won’t risk bringing the item to the floor with the Tea Party looming in the foreground and  Rep. Eric Cantor stalking his power.

So, what to do?

On Wednesday the Democratic leadership of the house will try to force a vote. Their plan is to file a ‘discharge petition,’ and they’ve called a press conference on the steps of the Capitol for dramatic effect. The mechanics of a ‘discharge petition’ are simple: gather 218 signatures, take them to the Speaker then go to the floor of the house to vote. It’s a perfect ploy. It takes pressure off the Speaker and it goads the more radical elements within the GOP to say something outrageous (and by that I mean outrageous to everyone except those who react to the typical dog whistle rhetoric).

The Democrats have already tried discharge petitions on seven prior occasions during the 113th Congress, to no avail. They rarely work, only seven have forced a vote since the mid-eighties.

At best the petition will generate a vote, which is what the Democrats want. At the very least it will tempt the usual Tea Party partisans to use immigration as a wedge, strengthen their base and alienate everyone else. (This is where we all cast a gaze at Rep. Steve King, R-IA, waiting for him to be the first to trip the trap.)

It’s possible that none of this will happen: the petition won’t succeed, the vote won’t come, everyone will hold their tongue. And if that should happen, we’ll go back to lighting candles.

But in the mean time, immigration politics on Capitol Hill hasn’t been this exciting for several months – sometimes anticipation is as good as it gets.

[Photo by Talk Radio News Service/Flickr]

 

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